Harry Potter and the Invincible British Gentleman
by hantamago
Summary: Harry is back for another year at Hogwarts, but this time Voldemort is back in full. While England simply wants to escape his life as a nation as much as possible, and to help protect the Boy Who Lived. Fail summary is fail. Rated T just in case.
1. The Empty Position

**Yay! :DD *confetti bomb goes off* My first fanfic~!**

**This is just something that I coughed up while in Algebra class, so I'm sorry if it sucks royal hippogriff. (A plate of my special cookies for anyone who knows where that's from. :3) **

**Personally, I think it's a bit short, but it is just an introduction after all. **

**I know the title sucks, but it's the only thing I could think of. I wanted to call it "Harry Potter and the Absolutely Invincible British Gentleman", but that was too long. So I settled for this~.**

**Well, enjoy, and reviews would be greatly loved.**

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><p>The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland sat at a little deserted café on the outskirts of London.<p>

He sat near the door and stared at the droplets of rain race each other to the bottom of the window frame, betting against himself on which one would win.

England sat with his legs crossed as he brought a cup of tea to his lips. Stopping just before he took a sip, he focused on the man standing on the other side of the street.

The road the café was placed on was devoid of any cars, so the man crossed.

When he opened the door to the café and a little ring was heard throughout the empty room, England set his cup down, stood up and greeted the man with a warm smile.

This man's attire was a bit peculiar, to say the least. He wore long, navy blue robes that swept the floor as he walked. His beard, though, was probably the oddest thing about this man's appearance. It fell long and white all the way down to his waist where he tucked it into the sash tied there. The face this magnificent beard fell from was old and had a few wrinkles to show his many years. Set into that face were bright, electric blue eyes that twinkled behind his half-moon spectacles with the joy and mischief that of a child. There was also endless wisdom hidden in them that truly showed how much he had seen.

"Arthur, old friend," his voice was deep with wisdom and age when he spoke, "the years have been kind to you. You haven't changed at all."

England grabbed his friend's hand and shook it, "Albus. It has been a while."

"A bit long for you to still be in such a youthful state, wouldn't you think?"

"Ah, you know how things are. Some age ripely-"

"While others age only in years." Dumbledore finished the sentence Arthur had last said to him fourteen years ago.

England smiled again and sat back down, gesturing to the seat across from him, "Please. Sit and tell me why it is you've brought me here today."

And so he sat. He brought his hands up to rest his chin upon intertwined fingers, blue eyes still twinkling with mischief. "You see, Arthur, one of my colleagues has taken a well needed retirement, and I have an empty position that needs to be filled." He stopped there and let the words sink in to Arthur and watch his reaction.

After a few seconds of hearing nothing but the pat of rain on the windows and the soft hum of fluorescent lights, England realized what Dumbledore was saying. "You want me… To teach. At Hogwarts? But why?"

"I daresay I owe you something from the last time we met. So here I am, offering you the best thing I do have to offer- a teaching job at Hogwarts."

It was another short while before England responded. "That would be an honor, a true honor. But for one, I barely did anything that night. What I did do was so minor it doesn't even deserve to be mentioned. Secondly, I am already employed, and my position isn't one that I can just drop whenever I feel like."

"That is very understandable. Which is why I was wondering if you were given special 'privileges', you could do this job from Hogwarts. I know that this is an awful lot to ask for, but please consider."

"Well…" England thought about this while bringing his teacup to his lips. Assuming he could have a cell phone that worked inside of the school, a way he could get his paperwork sent to him, a room where he could privately do said paperwork, and permission to leave the grounds once a month for world meetings and for any emergency meetings, it could be possible.

As he explained all of this to Dumbledore, leaving out anything that might invoke suspicion in the old man, his wrinkled mouth twitched upward in curiosity. "I say! You have quite the demanding job; I would love to know what it is you do that requires such devotion."

"I've told you," the Englishman said before taking a sip of his tea, "I work in world affairs for the muggle government of the UK."

A new determination sparkled in the old man's eyes behind his spectacles. Before the end of the term, he would uncover the secrets this Arthur Kirkland held, no matter what it took. This man was far too intriguing to ignore. "Do you accept?" he asked, already knowing the blonde man's response.

"I accept. With the special conditions discussed, obviously."

"Of course. Now, I really must get going. Even though I would much rather sit here enjoying a nice chat and a hot cup of tea, I have business I must attend to. I will send you an owl with the details and information you will be needing. The term starts on the 1st of September, but I assume you will want to come earlier and get yourself reacquainted with the going ons of Hogwarts. Good day and I'll be in touch." Without further a due, the old wizard stood, nodded to Arthur and departed from the empty café and walked out into the rain. Within the blink of an eye, he was gone.

The remaining man sighed, drained what was left of his now cold tea, payed the snoozing teen at the register, grabbed his umbrella and stepped into the typical London rain himself, thinking _What the bloody hell have I gotten myself into?_


	2. Three New Professors?

**And here it is~! Chapter 2! This is probably the fastest I will ever update. xD**

**Part of that is due to the fact that I already had half of this chapter written when I published the first one. Eh, doesn't matter. **

**I still have to figure out exactly where I want to go with this, but it's coming along. **

**And now time for responding to reviewers~. **

**rr: I feel the exact same way. It just irks me in the slightest every time that Dumbledore knows about the nations, because he doesn't automatically know everything. True, he does have more knowledge than others, but that's because he works to attain that knowledge, and that's what I plan to do here. Throughout the entire story he'll be trying to find out what exactly it is that's different about Artie. Thank you for reviewing, and here's the next chapter~!**

**Also thought I'd note that my birthday is tomorrow, so I won't be doing any writing. Whether that puts me behind schedule or not, I don't know. **

**Well, enough of my pointless ramblings. On to the story!**

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><p>Harry sat at the Gryffindor table, undeniably glad to be home. He tuned out the bickering of his two best friends, Ron and Hermione, as best he could. Everyone in the hall was talking animatedly with their friends about their summers and what they missed while they waited for McGonagall and the first years.<p>

"I'm starving!" Harry's ginger friend's words from him from his reverie as he realized the previous argument had been dropped.

"When _aren't_ you hungry?"

"Lots of times!"

"Name one."

"After the opening feast!"

"Exactly! _Feast!_ That doesn't count."

Ron opened his mouth to argue, but Harry cut him short. "Shut. Up. Both of you."

The harsh tone in his voice effectively shut up his friends. Hermione's eyes drifted up to the staff table for the first time that evening, scolding herself for not doing so earlier. She was itching to know who the replacement Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher would be, and whether they were any good.

What met her surprised her. There were three unfamiliar faces. The first was that one woman who had replaced Hagrid for a bit last year in Care of Magical Creatures. Grubbly-Plank was her name, Hermione thought. But what on earth is she doing here? Where was Hagrid?

The second was an old, toad-like woman, whose disgusting pink cardigan caught the eye of anyone bothering to flick their attention up to the staff table. This woman didn't leave a good impression on Hermione, from her cold, unforgiving face, creepy smile, and audacious muggle clothing.

The last was a young man with scraggly, sandy blonde hair who had the biggest eyebrows in what looked like the history of life itself. They were _huge_! And those eyes… Those striking, emerald green eyes that seemed to pull you in and strike straight through your soul all at the same time; they were even more luminescent than Harry's. the other thing that struck her as odd, besides his enormous eyebrows and milky white complexion, was the fact that he wore a suit. A muggle suit. And a tweed one at that.

"Hey…" she quietly tried to grab her friends' attentions.

"Bloody hell, Harry. Look at those eyebrows!"

"They look like big fuzzy caterpillars…"

"And that other lady. Yikes, pink is _not _her color."

"I think I know her from somewhere… Wait. Where's Hagrid?"

"Hey!" Hermione said firmer this time, "Don't you find it a bit peculiar-"

But she didn't get to finish, seeing at that exact moment the door to the Great all swung open and in walked the first years with McGonagall in the lead.

The room immediately quieted as the new students were marched to the stool and hat sitting up front. Hermione turned to Ron and Harry and mouthed 'Later'.

As the first years crowded the space in front of the Sorting Hat and stool, the hat gave its annual song before becoming silent once again.

Not only did the hat remain silent, but the entire hall sat in wonder, pondering the hat's sudden decision to give advice. Certainly that couldn't be normal, could it?

McGonagall, without another thought, opened a long scroll that held the list of names of the first years that were to be sorted. If she had been perplexed by the Sorting Hat's song, she didn't show it. "Abercrombie, Euan." The first of the first years walked shakily up to the stool and sat down as McGonagall placed to sorting hat on his head. Considering only a moment, the hat almost immediately placed the boy into Gryffindor.

And so the process went, as usual, until every last first year had been sorted.

After everyone had gotten settled, Dumbledore stood up and addressed the hall, eyes twinkling. "To our newcomers, welcome! To our old hands – welcome back! There is a time for speech making, but this is not. Tuck in!" With that, he sat back down and began reaching for the suddenly appeared food on the table in front of him.

The students immediately took in heaps of food and began tearing through plate after plate in an attempt to corral their hunger, amid a happy banter. Harry ate in silence, reflecting on everything that had happened since last June.

Eager to escape the dark thoughts that clouded his head, he looked up to the staff table to observe the new professors. The young looking one was eating in silence, eyes sweeping the hall with interest. It seemed as if he was sizing up all of the students in one go. The other woman, the one with the pink cardigan, was sitting stock still. She hadn't even grabbed so much as a biscuit to eat. Her eyes also swept the hall, but in a far more foreboding way than the blonde. A chill went down his back as she snapped her head around to look at Harry, almost as if she had sensed him watching. It was then that Harry remembered where it was he knew her from. That was that Umbridge woman that had been at his trial, the one who was overly ready to throw him in Azkhaban. She worked for Fudge—what was she doing here, at Hogwarts? Her thin, toad-like lips twitched up in a sinister sneer before slowly returning to her inspection of the hall.

Harry didn't like her at all.

After nearly everyone had finished, besides a select few who took their food very seriously, Ron's voice cut through the buzz of the Gryffindor table and grabbed his two friends' attentions."'Ey 'ermione, wha' were you-"

"Don't talk with your mouth full. It's rude and nearly impossible to understand a word you're saying."

He swallowed whatever it was he had shoveled in his mouth and tried again, "what were you going to say earlier, about something being peculiar?"

Harry turned to face his fluffy haired friend, also interested in what she had to say.

"Well," she started a bit apprehensively, "don't you find it a bit odd that there are two new professors, and that Hagrid is gone?"

This time it was the boys who didn't get a chance to respond, for Dumbledore stood once again. All talking in the hall ceased as they listened to his usual words of the wise. "We happen to have three changes in staffing this year. We are very pleased to welcome back Professor Grubbly-Plank, who will be taking Care of Magical Creatures lessons. We are also delighted to introduce Professor Kirkland, who will be taking over the position of teaching A History of Magic, and Professor Umbridge, our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher."

The rest of Dumbledore's speech, however, was interrupted by a quiet, yet undeniable "_Hem, hem_" All eyes turned to rest on Umbridge in shock. She was on her feet, and a totally fake smile plastered her face. "Thank you, Headmaster, for those kind words of welcome." And so her speech went. It started out in a breathy, fake sort of kind tone. Then it lost its breathiness and turned to cold and calculating; very businesslike. By the end of her speech, the entire hall was staring at her incredulously. Some hadn't understood a word of it, while others had understood more than what was probably good for them. She sat down after she was finished.

Dumbledore slowly began to clap, the rest of the table following suit rather unenthusiastically. "Thank you very much, Professor Umbridge, that was most illuminating," he said, giving her a slight bow. He continued on with his own speech.

"Well, that," Ron started quietly, "was probably the most boring speech I have ever heard in my life. And I grew up with Percy!"

"I didn't understand any of it; it sounded like a load of waffle."

"A rather informative, waffle, Harry. A _very_ informative waffle. Dumbledore had it right. It was rather illuminated. It definitely cleared up several things on the plate."

"Illuminating? How could that be illuminating? What did it even mean?"

"I'll tell you what it means. It means that the Ministry is interfering at Hogwarts." With that, Hermione stood and gestured to her fellow prefect to help her round up the first years to take them to the common room. With a line of students following them, Ron and Hermione disappeared into the hall.

This was going to be a long year, Harry thought.

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><p>After the feast was finished, Arthur trudged his way back to the room Dumbledore had given him. He had to go through his classroom to his office, and at the back of the small room stood a door leading to his dimly lit bedchambers.<p>

England closed the door behind him as he sat down at his desk, aiming to get some of the ever-growing pile of paperwork done. Apparently, no such luck was coming to him, for when he sat down, all he could think about was that Dolores Umbridge.

The nerve of that woman! To interrupt Dumbledore during his speaking time… Though her speech had certainly been illuminating, as Dumbledore cleverly stated, he couldn't help but question the motives of Fudge. Could this all simply be related to the fact that Fudge didn't want to believe the fact that Voldemort was back? That couldn't be the only reason, could it?

Frustrated with how his thoughts were treating him, England blew out all the candles, checked his specially permitted cell phone for any new messages one last time, and, without bothering to change, collapsed on to his bed leaving the pile of paperwork untouched. He was asleep within seconds of touching his head to the pillow.

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><p>Back in the Gryffindor common room, Harry, Ron and Hermione sat in their usual armchairs by the fire.<p>

"So," Harry broke the silence, "what do you two think of the new professors?"

"I want to know where Hagrid is. Why is that Grubby-Plank woman here?" Ron asked in response.

"Maybe Hagrid's not back yet. You know, from his mission that Dumbledore sent him on over the summer."

"Oh no," Hermione's eyes widened. 'You don't think he's... Hurt, do you?"

"No," came Harry's immediate answer.

"I do hope you're right," she looked rather worried.

"I am," Harry frowned, a bit annoyed at her lack confidence in Hagrid.

Ron frowned as well, "Look, he's fine, I'm sure of it. He's probably just not back yet, that's all. Maybe it took longer than expected."

"Yeah," Harry nodded, agreeing with him, "that has to be all it is."

"Well, it's obvious that _no one_ likes that Umbridge woman," Hermione said, changing the subject.

"I still can't believe that she's from the Ministry. Since when does Dumbledore allow things like that?" Ron was visibly perplexed.

"She was at my hearing," Harry noted. Both of his friends stared at him incredulously, as if he had just said something completely unreasonable.

"At your hearing?" Hermione asked, "She was at your hearing?"

"Yeah. I don't think she liked me very much though. She seemed pretty ticked when I got off with no charges."

"Odd." Hermione trailed off for a bit before coming back, storing that little piece of information to the back of her mind. "And that Kirkland character-"

"The one with the eyebrows."

"Yes, Ronald, the one with the eyebrows," Hermione snapped, annoyed at being interrupted. "He's wearing muggle clothing. And it's tweed nonetheless."

"Why would it matter what his suit is made of?"

"Someone who wears a tweed suit in the muggle world is usually pretty important," Harry said absently.

"Exactly. And he looks young. Really young."

"A lot younger than Binns, that's for sure. But it doesn't really matter anyways. He'll be teaching History of Magic, and that class is boring as hell. So who cares?"

"I care!" Of course she cared; he was going to be teaching her! "He looks awfully young, and I just don't think that'd be best for the class he'll be teaching."

"You never know, Hermione. It may be because he's young that the class gets more interesting," Harry interjected.

Obviously those two didn't care about how good their education was, so Hermione kept the rest of her thoughts to herself.

The Golden Trio sat in silence for a while as Hermione thought about God knows what, Ron focused on shoving as many exploding snap cards into the fireplace as he could without causing a minor explosion, and Harry simply staring into the fireplace, not really thinking about anything.

"We should be getting to bed," Hermione yawned and stretched her arms as she stood up. "We need to be well-rested for the beginning of the term tomorrow."

Ron threw the last of his cards into the fire, making the flames flare up with a loud _Whoosh!_ He stretched as well and put his foot on the first stair leading up to the boys' dorms. "C'mon Harry."

Following suit of his friends, Harry drew himself out of his chair and made his way up to the dorm rooms, changing into his pajamas, already nearly asleep. He collapsed onto his bed, rolled over onto his side and was asleep instantly.


	3. Only Time Will Tell

**AN: Disclaimer: I forgot this in the other two chapies, but I do not own Harry Potter or Hetalia. All relations belong to their rightful owners. **

**Uwah! I am _sooo _sorry for not posting sooner! I'm sorry~~~~~! I could make up a ton of excuses, like having boatload upon boatload of homework, visiting family, a continually decreasing grade in Algebra, and a bunch of other stuff, but I'll just be honest with you guys. I was lazy. **

**Would it make things better if I apologize in 7 different languages? Because 7 is a magical number? Because that's the number upon which the entire Harry Potter series was based? It probably won't, but I will anyways. I'm sorry! Lo siento! Je suis désolé!** **Es tut mir leid! Gomen! Duìbùqǐ****! Prosti!**

**And I'm also sorry if the ending of this one seems a bit rushed, and that's because it sort of is. But enough of my ramblings. On to the story~~!**

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><p>Arthur had never been a morning person.<p>

The Great Hall was scattered with students, some lively and joyful, others looking like they would face plant into their eggs, much like what Arthur felt like doing. Every so often, a group of students would shuffle through the door and to their respective tables.

Little butterflies fluttered around in Arthur's stomach as he watched the students go about their breakfast. His first day of teaching. This should be interesting, he thought. Arthur's untidy hair was even messier than normal this morning; he assumed he had flopped around in his sleep last night. His stomach was too fluttery to handle much, so he only grabbed a scone, buttered it, and poured himself a hot cup of tea.

When the tea had been drained, his nerves had been calmed enough so that he wasn't afraid that if he opened his mouth to speak, all the contents of his stomach wouldn't empty onto the person to whom he was addressing. Also, that little 'idea' of his wasn't really helping any...

His eyes drifted to the door again as he saw movement from the corner of his eye.

The first thing that caught his attention was a head of fiery red hair, rivaling even Arthur's brother's. He quickly swat the stray thought of his family away, for he was here to try and _escape _the hassles of being a nation. Arthur quickly realized that it was the same boy that had been sitting next to Harry last night at the fest.

Sure enough, he looked to the right of the redhead and saw Harry.

Harry. Harry Potter. The Boy Who Lived. It had been nearly 14 years since the blonde nation had last seen him. The boy had only been a year at the time, and he was growing up to look almost identical to his father. There was one difference; even from where he sat at the front of the hall, Arthur could see he had green eyes, like his mother's, whereas James had had hazel.

The nation then looked to the person standing on the other side of Harry. It was obvious in an instant that she was a girl, for her hair was a long brown bush. She was staring at Arthur, but when he met her gaze, she immediately dropped her own. The three made their way to the Gryffindor table, and Arthur refilled his cup with tea before bringing it to his lips. He tore his eyes away from the now eating teens, and averted his attention to Umbridge, who was sitting on the opposite end of the table.

She sat stick straight, a sickly smile upon her toad-like lips. Like the night before, she swept the hall with her cold eyes. Also like the night previous, she wore a fluffy pink cardigan.

Arthur shivered ever-so-slightly and faced the front again. Unable to restrain his own thoughts, he absently wondered how the others were fairing. He had left without a word, trying not to draw attention to himself. Hopefully, on one had taken notice to his absence The only ones he was truly worried about were Peter, whom he had left with his older brothers, God help the boy, and Alfred, who, being the pig headed git he was, would try to track Arthur down and "save" him from his "kidnappers". Alfred would, without a doubt, drag others with him as well.

A sour mood fell over Arthur as these thoughts clouded his head. Praying to whatever superior being there was out there, drained the rest of his tea, grabbed the remnants of his scone, and walked briskly through the Great Hall into his classroom.

His room was quaint, and had a single window facing the black lake. A roll-away chalkboard stood at the front of the room, and a desk sat across from it, pressed against the wall. There were four rows of desks for the students that went eight back. Quite a few students, he thought, setting his new wand on his desk.

A new wand had been the first thing on his mind when he had arrived at Diagon Alley nearly a month earlier. It wasn't that his old wand had been unusable, but because of how much it would have stood out. The bright yellow star at the tip of it had been necessary in the time he had gotten it, back when magic had been much less developed. Magic users had needed a charm at the tip, for that was where they had contained and controlled all of their magic. It was also a way of classification of people, for each charm was unique to the user. Nowadays, the yellow star would just be viewed as foolish, and the little respect the students and staff alike had for him would have all but vanished.

13 inches, willow, hair of a unicorn; pleasantly supple, Ollivander had said. Arthur had to admit he admired his new wand, though he would much rather use his old one. He sat down at his desk and picked up the willow wand and began twirling it slowly in his long, thin fingers. He wasn't thinking about anything in particular, but rather just secluding into himself as he stared sightlessly at his wand, ever twirling in his pale fingers.

Had it not been for one of his students clearing their throat, Arthur might not have snapped back for several more minutes.

"Well then," he said, standing up and making his way to the front of the room, facing the students. "Let's get started, shall we?"

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><p>When Hermione had learned that her first class of the day would be History of Magic, she shoveled what was left of her breakfast into her mouth, dashed back to her dorm and stuffed her bag with everything needed for the day and made it to Kirkland's classroom in record time.<p>

She composed herself before walking in; a deep breath filled her lungs as she readjusted the strap of her bag on her shoulder. Running all the way from the Gryffindor common room to the one she currently stood outside of had taken all of the breath from her lungs. A few seconds she stood just outside the doorway, catching her breath.

After her breath had been caught, she walked into the room with her chin held high. She slung her bag off of her shoulder and onto the floor next to the desk she currently occupied; in the front, as close to Professor Kirkland's desk as she could get. Last night while she laid on her bed, sleepless, Hermione had made a promise to herself that she would keep a close eye on the young teacher.

At the moment, he was sitting at the desk directly in front of her, twirling a wand between his fingers. Hermione's eyes darted down to watch the movement for a second, then back up to his face. Kirkland's unusually green orbs were distant and clouded, obviously lost in thought. Expression completely blank, his wand continued to twist.

Again, he wore a tweed suit, much like the one he had worn the night previous. A frown snaked its way onto Hermione's face as she stared at her new professor. _Shouldn't he be paying more attention? It's his first day!_ she thought.

Nearly 10 minutes had passed before another student showed up. A Slytherin, Hermione noted. Great. Looked like the Lions would be sharing the first class of the day with the Snakes. It didn't take long for all of the students to pour into the classroom and take their seats, Ron grudgingly so as he realized Hermione had saved them seats at the _front _of the room.

Another good 30 seconds passed where Kirkland twisting his wand with that dreamy expression that rivaled even Luna Lovegood's and the students staring at him before Hermione had had enough of the strangely silent room and cleared her throat. His reaction was immediate; he visibly jumped, dropped his wand onto the table and a light blush, only visible to those nearest him, crept up his face, due to the fact that he had basically just been told off b one of his students.

He then stood up and walked briskly over to stand by the black board. "Well then. Let's get started, shall we? Right," he then said, turning to face the class. "From what I can gather, all you've been studying so far is the relatively modern magical history of Great Britain along, am I correct?"

A few of the students nodded, while others had confused expressions on their faces. Modern? They had been studying things going all the way back to before the Dark Ages. What was _modern_ about that?

"As I suspected. Now, all of you take out your books, please." Most of them groaned; to the book? Already? Man, he was worse than Binns. "Then set them in a pile towards the inside of your table. Quickly now! We haven't got all day!"

Hermione was beginning to feel a little bit suspicious of this man's actions. She reluctantly set her book on top of Ron and Harry's, who had been all too eager to get them out of their sight. The, much to the entire class' surprise, and Hermione's horror, Kirkland then took out his wand and flicked it once, causing all of the book piles to burst into violent flame. A few students screamed, while others cheered at the burning of their books. Ron was among those cheering, while Hermione nearly felt like crying. A flying duster and trash bin then flew by each of the piles, sweeping them promptly inside by the direction of Professor Kirkland. "I don't know who thought this book would give you any sort of useful, or truthful information, but I'll tell you now that it's a load of bullocks." With that, the bin and duster returned to their place by Kirkland's desk, and a slight smirk upon his lips at the students' dumbfounded expressions.

"But Professor..." Hermione said weakly, staring at the bin that now held the charred remains of her text book with a pained expression.

"As... err... Fascinating as Goblin Wars are, in reality, there is no reason you would need to know about them as in depth as your previous professor had planned. The only time I could possibly imagine that you would need to know all that information would be if you came across an angry goblin who somehow worked out that the reason you had angered him is because you didn't know anything about his race, which is highly unlikely. Either that or you were in some wizard game show and they asked you a question about Goblin Wars, but that's even more unlikely than the first. If I remember correctly, you are all 5th years, yes?" a few heads bobbed in the affirmative. "In which case, your OWLS will be taken later this year. I have contacted the ministry and pulled a few strings, so that you History of Magic OWL is about what we will cover in class this year. I won't talk to you about the OWLS, however, because I know you'll be getting that lecture from every other teacher today. But anyways, you may thank me now for saving the lot of you from another ear of agonizingly slow and boring History of Magic class."

The way Ron and many other students looked at their new professor was instantly filled with respect. Hermione felt like rolling her eyes at all of them; the more this Kirkland fellow spoke, the more wary she grew of him. He seemed to have an air of confidence about him, which didn't fit who he supposedly was- a new teacher who looked far too young to be doing anything at Hogwarts other than studying. She estimated he was around 20 years old, possible a few years older.

"This year we will be going over what I thin is the most important part of magical history. That will be the origin of magic and all the events that have affected wizardry to be the way it is today."

At this, Hermione perked up. The origin of magic? That had always been one of the things Hermione had been curious about ever since she began this class in her first year. Professor Binns had never talked about it, so she had tried finding books about it in the school library, but none of them ever went into detail, and barely had more information than the fact that magic had been around just as long, if not longer, as the existence of humans.

"I have a few simple rules in this class, as you now see written on the board." Professor Kirkland then flicked his wand again, and writing appeared on said board. "First; respect. Respect me, respect your peers, and above all, respect yourself. Secondly; get your work done, please. Simply doing the work I assign will help you on any test, without a doubt. I won't assign much, but, when I do, do it. Thirdly; listen. Listen to me in class. Chances are that it's important to the lesson, no matter how boring my voice may be. who knows; you might end up actually learning something! It is what you come here for after all, I hope." The corner of his mouth twitched upward at that last bit. "I do not tolerate tardiness, unless you have a pass from one of the other professors. Unexcused tardiness will result in a single night of detention and an immediate deduction of 10 house points." Several groans could be heard on the students' behalf. "Oh, get over it! 10 points and one night's detention won't kill you. And lastly, try to enjoy yourself while giving your best. I understand History of Magic isn't the most invigorating class at Hogwarts, but I'll try to make it as interesting as I can. The only thing I ask from you lot is that you give your best in my class. It will make things so much more enjoyable for all of us."

Common sense, Hermione thought. At least now she knew he wasn't _totally _lacking in it, and he wouldn't be as easy going and uncaring as some of the younger teachers she had experienced in muggle schools.

"And," Professor Kirkland seemed rather hesitant about what he said next, "we might also be having some guest speakers throughout the year."

An excited buzz broke out through the classroom as he said this. They had never had guest speakers at Hogwarts before. "What kind of guest speakers?" one of the students asked.

"Well," he grew even more apprehensive as he went on. "_If _it did happen, they would be people from around the world talking about their country's magical history." He also frowned and muttered something unintelligible to himself.

Hermione, for one, thought this was an excellent idea. Who better to learn about other country's magical histories than someone from that very country itself? She also could stop herself from frowning; Professor Kirkland was obviously worried about these guests. If even the Professor was worried, maybe it wasn't such a good idea.

Kirkland then checked his watch and nodded a bit before returning his attention to the class. "I'm pretty much done here, so I guess I might as well ask if you guys have any questions. So, any questions?"

* * *

><p>The class only had 10 minutes left, and Arthur thought it would be a good time to let the students ask any questions they might have about the class. He called on a Slytherin boy with white blonde hair, though he probably should have known better. "Sir," the boy began, seeming to be rather disinterested, "how old are you, exactly?"<p>

"I hardly see how that's, relevant, Mr..."

"Malfoy. Draco Malfoy."

Ah. Well _that_ makes sense. "Mr. Malfoy. I am 23, thank you very much." It wasn't exactly a lie; technically. Physically, he was 23.

"23. You're _23_? And teaching?"

"That is correct, Mr. Malfoy. And it will serve you well to remember that. Because, that being so, I am the boss of you." Arthur smirked ever so slightly at the look of disdain on the young Slytherin boy's face.

"Any other questions, regarding the class, and not my personal life?" The brown haired girl sitting in the front row instantly shot her hand into the air. "Ah. Yes, Miss...?"

"Hermione Granger. About these guest speakers, around what time would they be coming?"

There it was again. Those 'guest speakers'... "Err... Well, whenever they're available, I suppose. I haven't really set a specific time. I haven't even spoken with anyone about this yet, Miss Granger. It was simply a random thought I had last night, and thought it might be informative for all of you."

This didn't seem to satisfy the girl's thirst, but she nodded anyways and sat back into her seat with lips brought together in a tight line.

"Any others?" Arthur surveyed the room, looking for any sign of question. Again, Granger's hand shot into the air. "Miss Granger? What's your question this time?"

"You said we were going to be talking about the origin of magic, and you said that it was one the most important things to learn about magical history. Why do you say that?"

"That is an excellent question. I say this because, knowing the origin of magic will help you better understand all magic. If you understand where it all started, your comprehension of the magic you use today will improve significantly. Honestly, I'm surprised, and a bit disappointing, that it isn't the first thing you learn upon arriving here at Hogwarts."

"So, you're saying that if we understand the origin of magic, our magical ability will get better?"

"I am, yes." The look on her face immediately lit up, and Arthur couldn't help but smile at her enthusiasm. "Unless any of you have any more questions... No? Then I'll let you have the last minute to talk amongst yourselves."

The class then broke out into happy chatter, and Arthur made his way back to his desk. He sighed a sigh of relief and leaned back as he rubbed his eyes. That went rather well, he thought. Better than he had anticipated, actually.

There was one thing he was worried about, though. Quite worried. Those 'guest speakers'. If he brought them to the school, the only thing they would bring would be chaos. Arthur wondered how much information they would actually give the kids. Maybe he shouldn't have suggested it in the first place... But assuming he could get them to focus, they would be an amazing source of information for the class.

He'd have to think about it a bit more. And even if he did decide to do it, he'd have to get permission from Albus, though that probably won't be much of a problem. As the hour ended, all the students poured out of the room and on to their next class. A few students lingered, but after a minute, they had all left, and Arthur was alone in his classroom until the next class came in.

The only thing he could think about was what would happen if he asked his fellow nations to speak during his class. Most of them would be a complete waste of time, minus a select few. All too easily, Arthur could see some of them let something slip that might cause suspicion to be brought to them.

It was there that he promised himself that of all the nations, he would _not_ bring in either America or Italy. Those two would probably cause the worst reaction, what with their big mouths annoying attitudes. He also decided to add France to that list, in fear that he would impregnate half the school. Oh, and Prussia, of course. He would probably end up preaching about his 'Prussian Awesomeness' to the class anyways. And, Arthur thought with a slight shudder, Russia and his insane sister, Belarus. They would only scare his class out of their wits; not to mention Arthur himself. The others, he thought, could most likely control themselves and give a half decent lesson.

Only time will tell, he mused to himself as his next class began taking their seats. Only time will tell whether or not he were to risk his position with bringing in potential chaos to the school.


	4. A Promising Year

**Disclaimer: I don't own Hetalia or Harry Potter. If I did Hetalia would probably be one big yaoi show, and Harry Potter would never have ended. **

**AN:**** Yay! Another chapter~~! Finally! Jeez, I feel like it's been /forever/ since I last updated. DX I'm so sorry~~~~~~!**

**I've actually had this chapter done for a while now, I just haven't gotten around to posting it. Between boat loads of homework, studying for midterms, and temporarily losing my notebook that had everything in it, I just haven't quite had the time. But here it is!**

**And now, I must do all the mushy mushy stuff. X3 Ich. Liebe. Dich. Alle. Seriously. Every time I get a new review I squeal and flail like a giddy little school girl. Probably because that's what I am. xD But seriously. A lot of times I get a lot of weird looks from my family because I randomly break out in a fit of squeals and giggles. Totally worth it. ;u; **

**Enough babbling. Let's get this show on the road~! 8D**

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><p>"That Umbridge woman is a nightmare," the trio sat around the fire in the Gryffindor common room, exhausted from their first day. "I can't believe she gave you detention already, mate. It's the first day! Now that's cruel."<p>

Harry remained silent, staring at the flames, careful not to expose his wounded hand. _I must not tell lies._ He grimaced at the thought of having that etched into his skin; it sickened him.

"I don't understand how we can learn how to defend ourselves without actually using magic. There's more to spells than just saying the incantation."

"We know, Hermione." Ron rolled his eyes at her. "You've only said it about 5 times since the class."

"Oh hush And that book. It's rubbish! It doesn't say anything about actually applying the information in real life!"

"Again, we know."

"It doesn't really seem like Umbridge cares." Ron and Hermione looked at their friend, a bit startled. He hadn't said anything since he had returned from his detention. "From what I can gather, she's waiting for us to run into trouble and die so she won't have to deal with us."

Harry's face remained impassive as he said this, not breaking his gaze from the fire. Hermione frowned at his comment. "She may be a nightmare, but even she wouldn't want that. She's a teacher, after all."

"Only because Fudge made her."

Pursing her lips, Hermione turned away from her friend and back to the fire. Umbridge didn't want them _dead_, did she? Of course not! She may just be here because the Minister made her, but they were the future of the Wizarding World. She wouldn't want to kill off the future, would she? Especially after working so hard to gain this so called 'perfection' that she constantly preached about. No. She may be an annoying little witch, but she wasn't a _Death Eater._

Was she...?

Of course she wasn't! What was she thinking? Hermione mentally slapped herself, forcing her mind on to a different train on thought.

She thought about all of her assignments she had done; that moonstone essay for Snape, those 10 inches for Umbridge, she even thought about the wool hats she had knitted for the House Elves, but her mind wandered back to the toad-like lady in pink. It wasn't possible, was it? She didn't _seem_ like the death Eater type. Besides, she was too loyal to Fudge. _That loyalty could be fake. _The thought spun through her head absently, and she thought about it for a bit before shooting it down. Not even the best liar on Earth could fake that much loyalty that well. No way was Umbridge a Death Eater. Hermione was just being paranoid.

Harry couldn't take any more of this silence. Hermione looked lost in thought, and Ron seemed to be elsewhere mentally. with a huff, he stood up and announced he was going to bed before turning on his heel and stalking off to the dorms, leaving Ron and Hermione in a daze, staring at his back as he went.

* * *

><p>Groaning, Arthur's head smacked down on his desk with a loud <em>thunk!<em> on top of his paperwork. Bloody paperwork. He hated the stuff. And he was already tired from teaching all day, not to mention the staff meeting later that evening.

Slowly he raised his head and made a face at the stack of paper to his right, which was considerably larger than the stack to his left, which was what he had accomplished. He heaved another groan and dropped his pen to his fist his eyes roughly until he saw stars. It was already late; this was August's paperwork. September's he would get next week at the world meeting. He hated the thought of having to leave his students so early in the year. Arthur also assumed that he should ask someone to speak for his class at that meeting, which only added to his stress level. He would have to get Dumbledore's permission tonight, then. Assuming he approved, which he most likely would, Arthur began running a list in his head of possible nations to bring in.

He considered Egypt first, because that was more-or-less where the first traces of magic resembling that of modern day magic had appeared. Quickly, he shot that idea down. Egypt, he felt, probably wouldn't be the best person to give a lecture. Plus, Arthur had never been very fond of the quiet nation. Maybe Greece? Again, he dismissed this thought. He would probably be even more boring than Egypt, if he wasn't already asleep himself. China? Maybe later. Arthur didn't feel like dealing with the Hello Kitty obsessed nation this early in the year.

To avoid the massive headache he felt coming on, Arthur dropped it. The details could be figured out after he was positive it was alright with the Headmaster.

He picked up his pen again- muggle pen, mind you, and went back to tackling the paperwork.

Approximately an hour passed with Arthur checking his watch more than doing actual paperwork before he set his pen back down and leaned back in his chair. "I'd better head to the staffroom," he said rather cheerily to himself. It was better than bloody paperwork, that was for sure.

He leisurely walked about the school, pausing to admire and chat up the paintings on the wall. Some of them he remembered even from when he had attended Hogwarts as a student himself just after the school was built, while others he had never seen before. The meeting wasn't supposed to start for fifteen more minutes. He had time.

When he did arrive at the meeting room, however, he found he was the last there, save for Dumbledore himself. 'Must've taken a bit too much time,' he thought. Those paintings were very engaging.

There were two seats open; one sat at the head of the table, facing everyone. Arthur assumed that it wouldn't be appropriate for him to sit there, guessing that spot was reserved for Dumbledore, so he took the only remaining seat. He found himself sitting in between Poppy Pomfrey, the school nurse, and the toad herself, Dolores Umbridge.

Everyone was strangely quiet. Arthur found this odd, considering most of these people had been working with each other for who knows how many years. They should have been talking and sharing stories of their summers with the other staff members, their second family. But an unnatural silence filled the air, and it made Arthur want to fidget in his seat.

'Why?' he wondered. 'Why aren't they chatting?' The uncomfortable silence remained until Dumbledore shuffled in. Arthur heard several breaths released, yet he also noticed the backs of several staff members stiffened. 'Well this is odd...' It didn't make much sense. Why would Dumbledore make them react this way? Shouldn't he be doing the opposite? His eyes then shifted to his right, where Umbridge was sitting with a smug, challenging smile on her face. She watched Dumbledore expectantly, daring him to say something. The old man merely smiled and took his seat at the head of the table.

"It's wonderful to see all of your healthy faces back and ready to educate the next generation of witches and wizards!" Dumbledore smiled warmly at the entire table, his arms spread wide, as if ready to envelope everyone in a tight hug. "I assume all of you have met Arthur and Dolores, yes? No? Well, whatever the matter, they will stay with us for the remainder of the year, and hopefully years to come."

Arthur said nothing. He had no intention of returning after this year- at least, return to teach, that is. He knew educating the young magical community was unbelievably important, but that job was not for him. Besides, there was no way for him to be in this position permanently; having two full time jobs wasn't the most fun thing in the world, especially since one of those jobs was practically more than full time. If he had to, Arthur himself would help Dumbledore in finding a permanent replacement for History of Magic professor.

"And I'd like to welcome back Professor Wilhelmina Grubbly-Plank, who is filling in for Hagrid with Care of Magical Creatures while he is... away."

A glint of suspicion shone in some of the staffs' faces while the others simply nodded politely in Wilhelmina's direction.

None of this really held any meaning to Arthur other than it was rather out of place, it seemed.

He had met Rubeus Hagrid only once, and that had also been the last time he had seen Albus- 14 years ago at the tragic incident at Gordric's Hollow, in which the young Potter boy's name was forever etched into wizarding history.

Rubeus had seemed like a good, sturdy sort of fellow. Big and burly on the outside, soft and mushy on the inside. Arthur had liked him. He wondered what could possibly be keeping him from his work' he seemed like the type to love his job.

Arthur shrugged mentally. It wasn't like that concerned him at all. It was none of his business.

"I hope all of you had a good summer and are ready to teach again. Everyone's first day went well, I presume, yes? Nothing that really needs to be discussed? No? Good. Very good. I guess... Any questions? If not, I believe we should be able to go about our evenings, no?"

Arthur did have a question, but he didn't particularly feel like asking it in front of everyone. He would ask Dumbledore later after everyone had left.

"Alright! Pleasantly short meeting, I'd say. Enjoy the rest of your evenings, and good luck with the rest of this week. Good night, sleep tight, and don't let the students bite!" Albus winked one of his electric blue eyes at his staff and immediately stood up, ending the meeting.

Blinking, Arthur looked at some of the teachers leave the room, while others stayed to chat, the tension lifted. 'That was,' the blonde nation thought, 'by far _the _shortest meeting I have ever attended. Ever.' And it was also the calmest and most orderly meeting he had been to as well. 'Which is,' he realized, 'incredibly sad on so many levels.'

He stood up and began making his way to the bearded man standing behind his chair who was currently speaking with a stern-looking woman, who Arthur believed to be Minerva McGonagall, Transfiguration professor, Head of Gryffindor House, and Deputy Headmistress.

It seemed as if she had known Arthur wanted to speak with the Headmaster, for she flicked her gaze to him then swiftly dismissed herself from the room, leaving the nation alone with the great wizard.

"Al-, I mean, Sir." Arthur found it a bit odd calling anyone other than his boss "sir". Then again, Albus was basically his boss now.

The old man chuckled, his eyes twinkling like they always were. "Albus is perfectly alright, Arthur. If anyone should be calling anyone 'sir' here, I would feel it should be _I _who calls _you_ that, thought I haven't the slightest notion as to why..."

He left the sentence open, almost like a question. the twinkle in his eye was curious and expectant. Arthur only cleared his throat and ignored to potential question. "Right. Well, I was wondering about something; something about my class."

"Yes? Anything I could help you with?"

"Well it's nothing regarding content or direction or anything of the like. no, I've got that mapped out pretty well. But I was wondering if it would be alright with you if I were to bring in some guest speakers to talk to the children about magic from around the world."

A long silence followed where Dumbledore could only stare with a mixture of shock and wonder at Arthur, who was beginning to fidget and turn red. Finally, he broke the silence with a question. "Speakers, you say?"

Arthur, glad the silence was gone, let out the breath he had been holding. "Yes. Speakers. They would be from countries abroad, and they would speak about their respective country's magical history. I thin it would be a great learning experience for the students, and, dare I say, no matter how interesting you can make a class, they will always get bored. It would be a good break from hearing my voice all the time, and they might even find it interesting, I hope. And you wouldn't have to worry about finding a room or anything like that, because they could sleep on my couch or something, and they wouldn't be staying long! Maybe 3 or 4 days at the most; just enough to get through every class. I'll take care of everything, I promise. They wouldn't be a burden or anything! I'd make sure to keep them in li-"

Dumbledore cut him off there with the raise of his hand. The blonde's little spiel had become very rushed, and it had been a bit hard to understand, not to mention unnecessary. "I trust you, Arthur." He allowed a moment for the blonde to recover from his flushing face before continuing. "It sounds like a splendid idea. And very unique, I might add. Not sure I've ever heard of that happening here. Hogwarts welcomes anyone and everyone. A friend of yours is a friend of mine."

"I wouldn't go so far as to say we're 'friends', exactly," Arthur mumbled to himself. "But nonetheless, I really think the students would benefit."

"I agree completely. When would you be having someone come?"

"With your permission, I'd like to have at least one speaker in by the end of the month."

"Of course you have my permission. But so early?" Dumbledore blinked in surprise.

"Yeah," Arthur nodded as he gave a sly grin. "It's always good to have the kids hooked from the start, eh?"

Amusement shone in the great wizard's blue eyes. "Indeed it is, my friend. Indeed it is."

* * *

><p>Long after all the professors had returned to their chambers, a much darker meeting was taking place.<p>

In a forest far from the sleeping Hogwarts castle, a light fog had settled, coating the ground in a damp, cold blanket.

The fog swirled and twisted in on itself, and crept up the trees in tight coils, that, if not for the coolness of the moisture, would have been rather pleasant and inviting. This fog also coiled up the legs of a certain dark wizard, formerly known as Tom Riddle.

It hadn't taken Lord Voldemort very long to settle into his new body. The time it had taken him, however, had cost him greatly.

He had let the Potter boy slip by yet again. A venomous snarl left his snake-like lips as they curled into a harsh sneer. The boy had been there. Right there! yet somehow, he had managed to escape, like he always did. How could that brat have evaded his death so many times? He was but a boy. A child! A child who had escaped the Dark Lord's wrath several times.

Well, Voldemort had had enough of that "This year," he whispered. His voice came out as a series of hisses. "This year, Nagini. This year the boy will die."

She was barely visible through the fog, but the Dark Lord's lare snake slithered next to him, tunneling through the low-hanging clouds.

There was something troubling the Dark Lord. Besides the abundance of life in Harry Potter, that is.

Earlier that very day, Voldemort had seen a vision of a face he knew very well. Not directly, of course. No, he had seen it through the Potter boy's mind. As annoying as this connection could be, it could be very interesting at times. The first time it had happened, the first time Voldemort had seen into the boy's mind, it had been quite a shock, not to mention a bit painful.

The Dark Lord also had to assume that the boy could see into his mind as well, which wasn't the best thought in the world. But he decided not to worry about it, because truthfully, what threat was a mere child to him, the darkest wizard that ever lived? None.

And since he posed no threat, the Dark Lord saw no harm in allowing him to see into the boy's mind. This particular time he had seen a man with choppy, sandy blonde hair and bright, emerald green eyes. Voldemort had been shocked, and frankly a bit angry at this. He knew that man. He knew that man all too well.

And he didn't like seeing him again. Alive. Well. It sickened him.

He too, the Dark Lord thought with a savage grin, would have to die.

Potter and Kirkland.

Oh, yes. This was going to be one successful year.

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><p><strong>Additional AN:<strong> **I must be extra chatty today. o3o **

**First item in business: spiel. XD Isn't that just a wonderful word? Spiel. -spins around in a circle in the Austrian Alps like in the Sound of Music- Spiel~~ Spiel~~ Oh, what a wonderful word~~~~ Spiel. 3**

**Okay. I'm done with my spiel on the word spiel now.**

**Okayseriouslythistime. I'm done. xD**

**Anyhoo~ Yay! Finally some sort of progression~... Sort of. Well, I had to make Voldy appear in some way, right? And uh... I think I /finally/ have a good idea as to where I wanna go with this fic. Took me long enough, eh? Lol. :3**

**I'm going to /try/ to maybe set up an updating schedule, because I'm really not liking this... This random posting whenever thing. Besides, I think it'll be good for me to have a deadline. So.. I'm thinking of trying to update every Wednesday or Thursday, or something. We'll see how it goes.**

**Anyhoo, I just wanna let you know /again/ how much I truly love all of you! :'D -hugglesquishes everyone- And remember~! Reviews are love! 3~**


	5. Of Quidditch and Aggravations

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. Harry Potter, Hetalia, and anything relating belong to their rightful owners. If I did own them, the two would've had an /official/ cross over done loooong ago.**

**AN: ...I am terribly sorry for basically disappearing off the face of the planet like that. ;~; I have no excuse for it other than laziness, lack of time to type it up, and some... issues I've been having with school that I won't go into detail with. No need to bore you with that. Well, that and it was kind of one of those times where you know where you want to go with the chapter, but you have no idea how to get there- I call it writers' block that's not. I apologize profusely. I always feel like I'm giving excuses to you guys. Dx It makes me feel terrible.  
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**Bleh. But anyhoo, enough of my petty excuses. Let zhe reading begin~! Finally! 8D  
><strong>

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><p>The rest of the week passed rather uneventfully for the trio, save for a few Umbridge upsets and odd occurrences with Kirkland, and Ron had to admit: he was <em>damn <em>ready for the weekend. Never mind the homework that was due Monday, the weekend was here and all he wanted to do was kick back, relax, and not have to deal with the teachers and their constant nagging to pay attention in class.

"Ron! Stop daydreaming! You're spilling pumpkin juice all down your front."

'Well,' the redhead thought sourly as he wiped his chin and took a napkin to his shirt with a scowl, 'I still have Hermione nagging me.'

"Honestly! You'd think-"

"Lay off it, 'Mione," Harry was certainly not in the mood to deal with his bickering friends. He was tired, truthfully a bit angry, sick of Umbridge, it was the weekend, and all he wanted was a little peace, _not _his two best friends fighting.

Rather angrily, he stabbed his eggs and shoveled them into his mouth, only to find that they were cold. Disgusted, Harry set his fork back down and pushed his plate away, finished.

Hermione noted her friend's behavior, but said nothing of it. She figured he more-or-less had a reason to be a bit moody; though he'd never admit it, she knew the daily detentions with that pink toad were getting to him.

Ron, on the other hand, merely thought the black-haired teen was being pissy, and absently wondered if Ginny was right and that guys sometimes did get man-periods, and if Harry was on his.

After finishing her toast, along with the rest of her breakfast, Hermione cleared her throat and suggested going to the library. "We have loads of homework."

A groan from a whiny Weasly was her response. "Oh, come on! It's Saturday, and one of the best days we've had all year. Summer was bloody hot, and it's a miracle it isn't raining. Let's go outside! I'd suggest a visit to Hagrid-"

"But he's not here."

"I know; I was getting to that! I'm not a total idiot," Ron grumbled; just because she's bloody brilliant doesn't give her the right to treat everyone like they haven't got a brain. "That's why I was _going_ to say, before I was so rudely interrupted, that we should just enjoy the weather. You know, just laze around, soak up some sun while we still can, maybe pay a bit of Exploding Snap."

"That sounds really great," Harry said, "but I don't think I can."

Horrified, Ron stared at his best friend. "But Harry!" He was the one who was always supposed to back him up. "Oh God, don't tell me Hermione's gone and poisoned your brain into thinking you have to do homework. It's not due 'till Monday!"

"No, it's not that. Angelina went ahead and scheduled Quidditch practice today."

"Oh, that's right. Wood left last year. So Angelina's the new captain?" Hermione, true to her character, had almost completely forgotten Quidditch even existed.

"Yeah. Try-outs are today."

The bushy haired girl hummed and paused a bit before speaking again. "Won't that effect the team? Oliver being gone and all?"

"That depends," Harry pondered the question in his head for a while before continuing. "It really all depends on who replaces Oliver as Keeper. if we don't get someone who's as good as him, well, then that's too bad. But if he's a better Keeper, great! And if he's just as good, spectacular. It won't really effect the rest of our playing much, but it could affect our morale, either goodly or badly."

"I see... But what about training methods? Weren't you always saying that Wood really drilled your butts into the ground? What if Angelina trains you differently; won't that effect your playing?"

Harry gave a snort and glanced down to the other side of the table where the girl of conversation sat. "Knowing Angelina, she'll follow right in Oliver's steps and practice us just as hard, if not harder."

Now what the two friends had not noticed during their nice little chat was that their third friend had gone ghostly pale at the first mention of Quidditch.

All summer, Ron had been preparing, and the Gryffindor Quidditch tryouts had always been at the forefront of his mind. It seemed, however, that in the midst of things, that particular thought shoved its way to the back of his mind until now, when the try-outs were that very day.

Ronald wanted to try out for Keeper.

He still hadn't informed his friends- or anyone, really- of this particular want, and now that the try-outs were so close, he was afraid to tell them.

Quidditch had always been Harry's thing. Sure they were best friends, but what if Harry liked the separation and was able do to something that didn't involve him? They were already together practically 24/7. Maybe Harry _liked_ being able to do something without the freckled redhead.

Ron could feel butterflies churning the remnants of his breakfast around in his stomach.

"Hey, Ron. Are you alright? You're looking a little green," Harry's concerned voice cut through said green-in-the-face Weasly's nervous stupor.

"Oh... Y-Yeah. I'm fine, just fine. Perfectly spectacular. Glorious, wondrous!" He laughed nervously, and the looks his friends gave him made Ron feel a bit self-conscious, not to mention a little weird. "Let's uh... Let's head back to the common room."

Hermione cleared her throat and stood up, slinging the bag Harry and Ron had not noticed she'd brought over her shoulder. "I was actually planning on heading to the library. I thought I'd made that clear earlier. But you two can go ahead. We can meet here again at lunch. Say, Harry, when does Quidditch start?"

"Err, one o'clock sharp."

"Splendid. Then Ron and I can watch. Toodles." She waved once, spun on her heel, then dutifully set off for the library.

"Did that seem odd to you?" Harry finally asked as the last of Hermione's bushy head had rounded the corner. "And when has she ever said 'toodles'? I think she's been hanging around Ginny too long."

Ron said nothing, nor did he bother to point out that he had never once in the 14 years he had known her heard his sister utter the word 'toodles'. His face had still not regained any color, and he was terrified that if he said anything he would upchuck all over the place. And Fred and George would _never_ let him live _that _down.

Worry etched into his features at his friend's uncharacteristic silence, Harry clapped a hand onto his shoulder. "Ron? You sure you're alright, mate?"

Slowly, the redhead nodded and finally managed to spit something out. "Yeah. L's'go." He carefully stood up, trying to avoid jostling his stomach too much, and headed for the door out to the corridor, not even bothering to see if his friend was following.

Harry didn't have to work hard to catch up, for Ron was moving about as fast as Dudley in gym class.

After what felt like forever, the duo reached the Gryffindor common room, and after a bit of moving though nonexistent molasses, were sitting in their favorite squishy armchairs by the fire.

The warmth from the fire- thank God for the fire- had put the flush right back into Ronald's cheeks, much to the relief of his best friend.

Feeling a great deal better, Ron took a deep breath and finally plucked up the courage to say what he should have said a while ago.

"Hey Harry."

"Yeah, Ron?"

"Well... You see..." Immediately, his face did the opposite of what it had done before. He felt his cheeks get uncomfortably hot, and as sure as Poland is a cross-dresser, it wasn't the fire's doing. "I... kind of... wantedtotryoutforKeeper."

"Err... Sorry. What?" His words had been so jumbled that there was no way Harry could have understood them.

Taking a deep breath, Ron felt his face burn even hotter as he felt his ears catch fire too. "I-I... I w-want... to... try out. For Quidditch."

Surprise swept across Harry's face as he blinked and then stared at his friend. Ron had always loved watching Quidditch, but he never expressed the desire to actually play the game. "Really? What position?"

"W-Well, i was thinking k-keeper. You know, now that Wood's gone." Why wouldn't his face just _calm down_? To have one's face burning as if at a witch trial right in front of your best friend was _not_ something that was enjoyable in the slightest.

"That's great!" Harry grinned genuinely. He felt a sudden sense of joy, for now Harry could do the thing he loved most with the person he had to most fun with- assuming he made the team. Ron joining the Quidditch team was possibly the best news he had heard in a very long time.

"Seriously? You don't mind?" Some of the blush left the redhead's cheeks, making them merely a light pink instead of tomato red.

"Mind? Why would I mind?" The grin was still fixed in place. "I think it's a great idea!"

Ron felt his face flush again, differently this time. A happy pink flushed, making his hair look oddly orange. "Brilliant! So uhm... What do we do until lunch?"

"Dunno," Harry shrugged and looked around the relatively empty common room. Its only occupants were Harry and Ron, a few third year girls gossiping in the corner, some enthusiastic first years doing homework ('Give 'em another week or two. They'll come round,' he thought), and, much to his surprise, Fred and George Weasly whispering in the corner with their heads jammed together. Harry didn't think much of it and turned back to Ron. "What d'you suppose 'Mione's doing? Maybe we should try tracking her down."

"Good God no," Ron's face scrunched up at the thought of what he would be forced to do if they found Hermione. "No doubt she's doing homework in the library. She didn't even need to tell us that's where she was going beforehand. We'd be able to find her too easily. I mean, when _isn't _she at the library?"

Harry chuckled and flicked a stray piece of dust off his jeans. "Good point. So finding Hermione is out of the question. So, what _do _we do?"

Ron shrugged his shoulders and offered the first thought that came to mind. "Want to play some Wizard's Chess?"

"Maybe... Or we could play Exploding Snap outside like you suggested earlier." The bespecled boy thought back to breakfast when Ron had been so devastated at not heading outside. "You know, for a little bit, before we have to come back in and get ready for the try-outs."

The redhead's eyes immediately lit up and he jumped to his feet, over-ready to get outside. "Sure! Let's go!"

Without another word, Ron briskly made his way out into the hall, itching to feel the sun on his freckly face. Laughing, Harry followed his overly enthusiastic friend all he way to the outside world, both of them having forgotten the Exploding Snap cards.

* * *

><p>Meanwhile, back in the library, Hermione, for once, wasn't doing homework.<p>

Books were scattered all across the table she was occupying, and there were even a few stacked next to her.

See, Hermione had always been one to pay attention to even the smallest of details, especially when it came to her education.

Kirkland had started the year exactly how Hermione had predicted he would, based off of his introductory speech- with the magic of Ancient China, or, more specifically, Daoist Mysticism.

Hermione had always been rather fascinated with that particular era of magical history (and practically every other era there ever was), and had spent many hours and read countless books studying the subject. She knew practically everything there was to know about Daoist Magic- or at least she thought she had.

Daoshis had been, and a few still were, some of the most powerful magic users in all of Earth's magical history. They had been able to bend the weather to their will, move mountains, contact the dead in more ways than one, and most mind-boggling of all, they were at peace with both themselves and others. They barely conflicted with one another and treated everything with a respect alien to anyone outside the field. These weather wielders had really been bordering on god rather than man. They were terrifyingly powerful.

This Hermione knew, for it was in every book she'd ever read about Daoism.

Now, according to Kirkland, in later years, something withing the first 10 centuries, an unknown group of European nonconformist Christians had visited China and studied the art of Daoist magic. However, what the peaceful Daoshis teaching these Europeans had not noticed was that these impure men were taking their ancient magick and corrupting it into a far more violent and brutal form, forever tainting the Daoist ways. These days, only a select few even study actual Daoism, and even fewer are the true, pure Daoshis that were the heart of European magic.

After spending several years in China, corrupting the Daoist magic, the unnamed group returned to Europe with what we today call sorcery.

The group decided that the power they possessed was too much for any man, and decided they should keep it a secret. One of them disagreed.

_"Let's call him... Paul, shall we?" The ends of Kirkland's lips pulled into a small, barely there smile as he said this. It was Friday and the end of the first week was drawing near. Everyone was passed ready for Saturday; even Hermione of all people was having trouble concentrating. She tried very hard to pay attention in her first period class, but these days, History of Magic was the most exciting class of the day, even more than Ancient Runes. Totally bizarre. It also didn't hurt that the class had become a million times more interesting than previous years. The teacher was young, considerably more_ real _than other teachers, and he really brought history t_o _life. The way he spoke about it was incredible, like he was retelling an old story rather than reciting print from a book. Not to mention he was quite attractive. Even the eyebrows seemed to only add to his overall charm._

_That particular day they were starting to more-or-less wrap up their section on Ancient China. "Now, this Paul had a bit of a different view on things. The others claimed that the power they held was too much for any man, but if that was so, then why were _they _allowed to have that power? Paul saw right through the others. He saw that they were just being selfish and wanted to keep the power to themselves. Paul thought that they should share this discovery with the world._

_"I'm not going to say if either of the two ideas were right or wrong. Both sides had valid points, but I'm pretty sure you guys can tell whether or not Paul told everyone. We're practicing magic today, aren't we? What we use today has evolved substantially since then, but we'll get more into modern magic later."_

_The room was silent, except for the furious scratching of quills on parchment. Everyday they were taking notes right up to the end of the hour. The amount of information Kirkland gave everyday was astounding. If they even wanted a chance of remembering everything they had no choice but to take notes, and quality notes at that. And they couldn't get away with even whispering in this class; Kirkland heard everything. And saw everything too, it seemed, for, so far, every note that had been passed in his class had been read aloud, much to the enjoyment of everyone the notes hadn't involved._

_Hermione, for one, thoroughly enjoyed this, because there was absolutely __nothing interrupting with her learning. It was just her, her brain, and her beloved education; it was lovely. _

_The young teacher then glanced to the watch at his wrist and gave a tiny nod to himself, decided. "Alright class, I'm basically done here. But before you explode into your chats, I wanted to tell you I'll be expecting 10 inches on one aspect of Daoist Mysticism. Your choice, as long as it's 10 inches, not thrown together in 5 minutes, and not total bollocks. The test will be Wednesday, and if things go well, we will most likely be having our first speaker on Thursday. Assuming I can figure out someone to bring in."_

_An excited murmur fell over the entire room, and their faces shone with expectation. Kirkland cleared_ _his throat once and called attention back to him. "Yes, yes, very exciting. Don't be totally set on that though, because I'm not 100 percent sure it's going to happen." This didn't seem to dampen the students' moods, however, and they stared at Arthur intensely. _

_Hermione noticed Kirkland_'s _cheeks turn a light pink, probably from all the attention. "Anyways... I thought you should all know that I won't be here through the weekend, Monday or Tuesday. No, I don't know who will be filling in for me, but I will be here Wednesday for the test. Hopefully."_

_Confusion showed on most of the students' faces, Hermione included_. _One Gryffindor, namely Seamus Finnegan,_ _blurted out what everyone was wondering. "Well, where will you be?"_

_"Ah... Well you see," Kirkland fidgeted for a bit before checking his watch and sighing an unnoticed sigh of relief. "Oh, would you look at that! I can let you out a minute early. Out you go then, and Happy Friday!"_

_The blonde man then promptly shooed the students out through the door._

Hermione hadn't shook the odd feeling she'd had since that class over 24 hours later.

The thing that bugged her most about that class period was where the heck Kirkland would be until Wednesday. There wasn't really anything she could do about that though, so she moved on to the other problem she had.

That entire part about the group of Europeans traveling to China and corrupting the magic of the Daoshis. She had read tons of books about Daoism, and never once had any of them mentioned anything remotely about Europe. At all.

She had thought this numerous times in the past hour that she had spent in the library searching.

On that particular day, Hermione was searching through all the books the library had about that particular subject, but none of the particular books she picked up had that particular detail that Kirkland had covered in that particular day of class.

Getting mildly frustrated, Hermione huffed angrily and fisted her eyes until she saw fireworks. She stared blankly at the open book in front of her, the words nothing but a blurred mess. This wasn't helping at all. she knew what she read. Why was she trying to find that detail? A teacher had taught it, hadn't they?

_But teachers can be wrong too, _Hermione argued with herself. _It's not in any book. Doesn't that mean it's wrong?_

Why do you care anyway? He said what he said and that's that. It's going to be on the test, and if you put anything but what he said, it'll just be counted incorrect. Just give it up.

_But it's wrong! He's teaching us false information. That isn't right._

How do you know it's wrong?

_Because it's not in any books! If it's not in a book there's no way it can be true._

Well you're being a bit narrow-minded, aren't you?

_Oh, hush up!_

What about the fact that Umbridge is a little bitch? That's not in any book, but you know it's true.

_That's different. And watch you language!_

I'm you, so technically you're using that language too.

_...Shut up._

Hermione mentally shook herself and took a deep breath. 'Calm yourself, 'Mione. Don't lose sanity, now.'

Since this library visit obviously wasn't getting her anywhere, Hermione sighed, defeated, and closed the book in front of her. She decided that she should probably put the books back and head up to the common room to see if Ron and Harry were there. her eyes just darted over all the books, not settling on any of them, her body unmoving. 'I really should put these away...' Slowly, she took a deep breath and leaned back in her chair, actually looking at all the books she had collected. 'I really did go through a lot of trouble finding all these. I wonder...'

Barely even realizing she was moving, Hermione slowly stood up from her chair and turned in the direction of the back of the library, headed for the librarian's desk.

"Madame Pince," she asked the librarian standing at her desk in the back of the room, at which Hermione now stood, "I was wondering if there was any way to reserve a book."

"Why, of course. Tell me the name and I'll alert you when we have it available for you to check out." The old women looked up at the bushy haired girl over her spectacles with a little more kindness than she would have most other students. Hermione Granger was, after all, one of her most frequent visitors, and she actually knew and valued the importance of a book, unlike some of the other half-witted imbeciles in the castle.

"Err... It's not exactly like that," the young girl's face flushed the tiniest bit. "You know that table I was occupying-"

"How could anyone miss it? There's barely any table left."

"Yes, well, you see... I want to save all of them, without necessarily checking them out."

The librarian blinked and Hermione watched her closely as the statement settled in. Madame Pince's eyes started to grow a bit large as she focused in on the humongous pile of books gathered by the young Gryffindor. "W-Well dear... I would love to oblige... but I don't think I can. That's an awful lot of books to save, and what if some of the other kids needed them? They'd see them right behind the counter, and I couldn't tell them 'Oh, I'm saving these for someone else' because that would be wrong."

"But if I were to check them out, you'd allow that, wouldn't you?"

"I guess, yes, because if you checked them out, they'd be temporarily yours. And our library doesn't have a restriction on how many books you can check out, so... that would technically be alright." The old women's face was going slightly pale at the thought of all those books being absent from her library.

Slowly, Hermione nodded and thought about this for a moment. She really wanted to avoid checking them out at all costs, because then she would have had to find a way to drag all of those books up to her dormitory, and even if she used magic to get them all up there, she'd have to explain why on Earth she had all of those books. 'I'm studying for the test next Wednesday' wouldn't exactly be a very good excuse either, because all the information they needed was right in their notes. And saying that she wanted to make sure she hadn't missed anything wouldn't work either, because she was Hermione Granger, and Hermione Granger always took the best quality notes. "Well alright then. I guess I don't have much of a choice, do I? I'll check out the important ones now, and then... yeah. Try and find the other ones again later."

"Hmm... Assuming you'll be needing them again rather quickly, I could let you simply put them all in a place that you'll be able to find later... I'm just doing this because I know I can trust you."

A huge grin broke out on Hermione's face. "You'll really do that? Oh, thank you Madame Pince! I'll just go get the ones I want now, then put the others somewhere else." Really, she didn't understand why no one liked the old librarian. Once you got past her stuffiness, she was really quite nice; you just had to get on her good side. Hermione felt like she could hug her, but figured that wouldn't be the best thing.

Quickly, she trotted over to her rather buried table, and selected five of the books she had found more useful. Only five because that was as many as she could carry. Careful not to drop any of the books, she once again made her way to the counter and Madame Pince, where she set the books down and let the librarian do her job. She then returned to the table and picked up as many as she could and placed them all on a shelf not far from her table. Several trips she made, until all the books were stacked neatly on the same shelf.

Her cheeks were a bit flushed, and she was honestly a bit winded- those books were heavier than you'd think! Returning to the desk once more, she retrieved the now checked out books, thanked Madame Pince once again, and turned on her way out.

Before she could take a step, however, she was stopped by the voice of the librarian again. "Err... Miss Granger, if you don't mind me asking, exactly what do you need all those books for?"

Hermione simply smiled cheekily and replied with the vaguest answer she had ever given the old women. "A bit of studying." And Hermione Granger had given Madame Pince quite some vague answers in the past.

Turning around, she hurried out the door and worked her way towards the Gryffindor common room, leaving the librarian in another curious daze, as she often did.

After all that trouble, Hermione was glad she was able to get at least a few sources to do some good studying up on, even if it wasn't near as many as she had hoped to get.

She walked rather briskly to the common room, meeting no one, to see if she could catch Harry and Ron before they headed down to the Great Hall for lunch.

Upon arrival, she was disappointed to see the two boys were no where in sight. In fact, the only people in the room were Fred and George, muttering away in that corner of theirs.

Paying them no heed, Hermione hurried up the stairs to the girls' dorms and dumped the books onto her bed before rushing back down the stairs, past the twins, and out the door to the Great Hall.

* * *

><p>With a huff, a rather flushed Hermione sat down next to Ron, who had already stuffed a sandwich down his throat and was working on his second.<p>

"What time is it?" she asked absently while piling food onto her own plate.

Harry looked at the watch he always wore on his wrist and grimaced a bit. "12:30. We only have half an hour until the try-outs start."

"Oh. I see. Well, if you have to get there early, don't feel bad about leaving Ron and I. We can find the pitch ourselves, you know." Hermione still hadn't even looked at either of her friends, the whom she was sitting next to turning slightly red again.

"Err, actually..."

At that, Hermione stopped the second she was about to take a bite, and looked up at Harry, who was sitting across from her. After no answers were found there, she turned to Ron, whose face was about as flushed as hers had been when she sat down. She looked back to Harry, and then to Ron again. Growing a bit frustrated, she set the sandwich back on her plate. "What? Actually what?"

"Ron's trying out."

Hermione blinked. "Ron is... trying... out?" She blinked again. "Oh... _Oh! _Ron is trying out! Really?" She looked at Harry rather quizzically, then turned to Ron at the look he gave her. "Really?"

"What?" the redhead said rather angrily. The tips of his ears had gone quite red. "Is it really that difficult to believe that I'd want to try out for Quidditch?"

"Well I guess not... You just don't really strike me as much of a player."

"I'm a Weasly! Of course I play!"

"Percy didn't."

"Well Percy is Percy! He doesn't count!"

Shrugging, Hermione turned back to her food. "Well alright then. What position?"

"Keeper..." The color still had not left Ron's ears, and he quite honestly felt a bit embarrassed that Hermione really had a hard time envisioning him as a Quidditch player.

"Keeper? That's what Wood played, wasn't it?"

Harry rolled his eyes. "We went over that this morning, Hermione."

"Right right. Keeper then. Wait. When did you decide to try out?" The young girl frowned. She couldn't remember Ron ever having said that he was going to try out for Quidditch.

"Sometime this summer," Ron replied, staring at his half-eaten sandwich, appetite now gone. Damn butterflies.

"Oh?" Hermione looked at Ron again, who still was looking at his plate. "How come you never told us?"

Ron shrugged and avoided the question. He finally looked at Harry after some of the color had left his face. "What time should we head down to the pitch?"

"Well we need to change first, but I'd say we should be going as soon as possible." Harry looked down at his watch again and frowned, seeing that five minutes had already passed.

Making everyone around him jump, Ron stood up very quickly whilst banging his fist on the table, almost falling over in the process. "Why-" he stopped and cleared his throat, making sure that his voice wouldn't crack this time. "Why don't we just go now?"

"Err..." Harry blinked and looked at his friend, "What about your food?"

"Forget that! Let's just- Let's just go! Now!"

Without another word, the redhead stalked off for the door of the Great Hall at a rather uncharacteristically quick pace.

Harry threw a look to Hermione that clearly said "_What are we going to do with him?_"

With a slight chuckle and shake of the head, Hermione shrugged. "Just go with him. And tell him I said good luck, yeah?"

"Will do," a grin found its way onto the bespecled boy's face as a rather high-pitched voice yelled out across the room: "LET'S GO, HARRY!"

Laughing, Hermione vaguely pointed her fork in the direction of the voice. "Just go. And good luck to you, too!"

Harry waved, already half of the way to his freckled friend.

The bushy haired Gryffindor sighed and went back to her food, her thoughts starting with why Ron hadn't told them he would be trying out for Keeper until they strayed back to her homework.

It was true, the comment she had made earlier about having loads of it. Though, that was only to be expected, as this year, their fifth year, was the year they would be taking their O.W.L.s. She'd probably never admit it, but Hermione truly was nervous about these tests, as they were more-or-less the basis on which her entire wizarding career would be based. (Besides for the N.E.W.T.s, but those weren't for a while. And it was always the first ones that counted the most, right?)

Hermione shook her head to steer her thoughts away from stressful ones. Instead she decided that it had indeed been a bloody hot summer, and was noticeably nicer out than it usually was, even if she hadn't stepped a foot outside. The windows and the other student's attitudes told her everything.

The rest of her lunch passed uneventfully, and soon enough, Hermione found herself wandering the halls of Hogwarts at an unhurried pace in the general direction that would take her out the the pitch. She wasn't really thinking or paying attention to anything, so it wasn't a surprise that she was sent sprawling to the floor with a loud _Oof!_ upon smacking into something.

Or someone. "Professor Kirkland?" Hermione was curious; wasn't he supposed to be somewhere?

"Miss Granger," the girl's collision had made Arthur jump and nearly drop the briefcase he was holding, but had not sent him to the floor, like it had Hermione. Arthur's voice held a bit of surprise in it as well. None-the-less, he offered her a hand.

"Thanks," she muttered and took it, pulling herself to her feet. She rubbed her backside as nonchalantly as she could; falling on her bum like that had hurt! "And sorry for running into you."

"No worries," Arthur gave the young Gryffindor a small smile and conveniently ignored where she had placed her other hand. "If I were you, however, I would try and pay more attention to where I'm walking. Next time it could be a wall, and trust me, walls aren't exactly as soft as I am. Quite the opposite, actually."

Hermione grinned, "I'll try my best to remember that."

A chuckle escaped from the blonde nation's lips. "Good. Now, if you don't mind me asking, were you headed for anywhere in particular, or just wandering?"

"Oh! I was actually headed out to the Quidditch pitch to watch my friends. Today is the Gryffindor try-outs, you know."

"Really? Oh, that's right. I remember Albus mentioning something about Harry taking after his father. He's quite good, if memory serves. Seeker, yes?" Arthur did in fact remember Dumbledore saying that Harry had quite the knack for playing Quidditch. _'Best seeker the Gryffindor team has seen in a very long while,'_ the old man had said, quite fondly.

Nodding, Hermione couldn't help but feel a little bit of pride in her friend's skills. "Yes. And you're right. He's really good."

"Is that so? Hm... I have a bit of time before I really have to leave... Alright, you've convinced me. I might stop by to watch for 10 minutes or so, just to see what things are looking like. It's been forever since I've seen any form of Quidditch. That is, of course, if you don't mind me joining you."

Hermione wasn't exactly sure why, but she felt herself flush a light shade of pink at that comment. "Ah, n-not at all."

"Perfect," Arthur quirked another half smile, and motioned for Hermione to lead the way.

Color already leaving her cheeks, Hermione took up a natural pace, Arthur in step next to her.

"So, err, speaking of having a bit of time, why is that? I thought you said you were going to be gone today?" Hermione asked as casually as she could.

"Well, I am leaving later. A few changes were made and the meeting isn't starting until later this afternoon, so I have a little time to waste before heading down to Hogsmede so I can apparate there." Arthur also kept his tone casual when he answered her.

"Oh? A meeting? What sort of meeting?" She put just enough curiosity in her voice for him to know she was genuinely curious, but not in the overly dramatic I-need-to-know-where-you're-going-or-else-I-might-die way that she was feeling inside.

"Just... a meeting for... outside work." Kirkland shot a sideways glance at the young Gryffindor, who was looking quite puzzled, and quirked another of what Hermione was making out to be his signature half smile. "You know, Miss Granger, as hard as it is to believe, teachers do have lives before they come to Hogwarts."

Hermione felt her face get hot again. "I-I know, it's just that... Can you really have a job outside of Hogwarts while you're working here? I just... don't really see how it's possible."

"Ah, well, that is somewhat of a balancing act, you see. And while I'm here, you could call it a part time job."

"A part time job... Huh. What kind of part time job is it?" Again, she asked casually, hiding how much she actually wanted to know.

"Mostly it's just a lot of paper work, Miss Granger," and that was that. Kirkland's voice had a note of finality in it that forbade Hermione from prying any further.

The rest of the walk to the pitch passed in small talk. "It sure is beautiful out today."; "I hope this weather lasts for a while."; "Do you have much homework this weekend?".

When they arrived, several brooms were already in the air, warming up.

The two worked their way up into the stands, and as soon as they had seated themselves, Hermione began searching for her friends. She saw neither, and was instantly worried, if not a bit curious. Where were they?

She did, however, find Fred and George Weasly in the air, joking around and smacking each other with their beaters' bats, as was their nature. Seeing them acting normally like that made Hermione almost forget their odd behavior in the common room.

"I don't see your friends anywhere..." Kirkland had a hand up to his face, shielding his eyes from the bright sun bathing the entire stadium.

"Yeah," Hermione swept the stadium one more time in search of her friends. "Maybe they're still in the locker room. Ron seemed awfully nervous about the whole thing."

Arthur hummed in understanding. "They'll show up eventually."

As if on cue, Harry and Ron emerged from the underground locker room not a minute after Arthur had spoken.

"There they are!" Knowing that her friends were alright, Hermione visibly relaxed in her seat.

"Ah, yes," Arthur nodded as he saw the two boys walk out onto the field, brooms in hand. "Err... Is it just me, or is Mr. Weasly looking a little... _green_?"

Indeed he was. "Oh, no." Hermione frowned at the look on Ron's face. He was, in fact, very green, and staring nervously at the broom he was holding.

Down on the field, Harry was trying to calmly talk Ron into getting on the broom, and that no, it was not going to go wild and throw him to the ground. Nor would he slide off of it.

No where near reassured, Ron simply nodded and mounted said broom, still looking very green in the face.

Back in the stands, Hermione sighed in relief; at least he didn't run screaming off the pitch. That was good, right?

"It doesn't look like he's going to spontaneously combust, so there you go. All good." Arthur gave the young Granger girl a side-ways half smile, attempting to ease her off her nerves for the other boy.

Accepting the attempt, Hermione grinned back at her teacher. She realized that he was much different outside the classroom.

He was much more relaxed, and the little crease in his brow was gone, left in the classroom. Even with the much less intimidating Professor Kirkland, Hermione still felt like something was off, though there was absolutely no reason for her to be thinking that.

She shook her head, trying to rid herself of any thoughts that might let her doubt the young professor. Sure, he was a bit young, and yes, maybe a little bit odd, and he definitely did give off that vibe that he was hiding something, but there was no way that something could be that he was... _evil_, right? Absolutely not. She had already ruled out the possiblity of him being a Death Eater very early on, around the same time she had deemed Umbridge not-a-Death-Eater. True, she was an evil little witch, but she just couldn't be a Death Eater. No way. Just like it was impossible for Kirkland to be one.

Again, she shook her head to clear out those pesky Death Eater thoughts. _'You're just being paranoid, that's all,_' Hermione reassured herself. '_Nothing to worry about._'

As if to put her doubts to rest, Kirkland spoke again. "Are you alright, Miss Granger? You seemed a bit distant there."

"Oh, it's nothing," she said with a dismissing hand wave, "I was just... elsewhere."

Kirkland nodded in understanding, and turned to watch the potential players warm up. "Oh, look! There he is. Though I think he's a bit greener than he was before..."

Hermione turned her attention back to the field, just in time to see Ron take off into the air, looking quite nauseous. At first, he looked a bit unsteady on his broom, but after making a few slow laps around the pitch, he eased into it, looking quite a bit more comfortable than he had minutes before.

The girl in the stands sighed in relief, glad to see that her friend was doing just fine - or as fine as he was going to get.

And so it continued. The Gryffindor hopefuls performed the best they could possibly do while Angelina Johnson, the new captain, watched and assessed their abilities. Harry, of course, was fantastic, as always. Flying around the pitch like it was second nature, catching the snitch as easy as walking; he even tried being a beater and a catcher. He wasn't bad, but he was definitely a seeker.

Ron, on the other hand, was less than graceful in the air. He kept sliding around on the handle of his broom, and the few quaffles he did stop from going through the hoops were stopped shakily at best.

Hermione chewed on her lip as she watched the head of red hair at the end of the pitch; she was so wrapped up in making sure he didn't plummet to certain death that she didn't even notice when Professor Kirkland stood up with parting words and exited the stadium.

It wouldn't be until Ron was safely on the ground did she realize the blonde man had left, making her curse herself for not making more of an effort to find out where he was headed.

* * *

><p>After leaving Granger alone in the stands to fret over her friend, England made his way for Hogsmede. From there he would apparate to - where was it this time, Denmark, wasn't it? - Copenhagen. He had sent in his paperwork to his boss ahead of time, and after the meeting was over he planned on making a stop to London to pick up the new stuff from his boss.<p>

God, he hated paperwork, he thought with a sour expression as he walked the path that had students scattered about it, enjoying the nice weather. A few stopped to wave or give a friendly 'hello' to the new professor, but most just ignored him on his trek to the small, all-wizarding village.

At the back of his head, the big question still remained; who was he going to bring back? He had promised himself that he was going to think about this more before the world meeting, but he just kept putting it off and now, here he was, still completely fresh out of ideas. He silently prayed that an idea would come to him like sunshine in a rainstorm, but somewhere in the back of his head he realized that if he didn't get an idea, he'd just have to get China to come. And that was not something he particularly wanted to deal with this early in the year, as he had told himself earlier.

England rubbed the back of his neck absently with a sigh as the roofs of the village began to come into view. Smacking his briefcase against his leg as he walked, Arthur attempted to stray his thoughts from the upcoming meeting. It had been such a blessing to be away from all the other nations, and he wasn't particularly looking forward to seeing them all again. He just hoped that none of them had noticed his absence.

America was sure to be loud, France was sure to be grabby, Italy was sure to be clueless, and England was sure to be thoroughly annoyed.

Making his way through the small town, there were a few shop owners outside enjoying drinks or just chatting. Like the students, a few said their greetings, but most just waved or ignored him completely.

He gave a rather loud and exaggerated sigh as he reached the edge of the town where he knew for sure that he would be able to apparate. _It would be so much easier to just apparate from the castle..._

Scowl on his face, England pictured the meeting building in downtown Copenhagen, Denmark, and was gone from the wizarding village with a loud _crack!_, already aggravated at the world

* * *

><p><strong>Additional AN: OMG L;WJFOWIJWO I FINALLY DID IT! IT'S HERE OMG I FEEL SO ACCOMPLISHED.<strong>

**No but really. I am terribly terribly sorry for the delay. I can't even begin to express how late and overdue and completely unacceptable this is. I just... woijow I'm sorry. And then, I hate to do this to you guys, but it might be a while before the next chapter is up. I'm currently treading on very thin ice with my parents right now - my grades aren't so hot. But hey. I blame the internet. Problem is, they do too. So... I already have limited access to internet as it is now. Most of this chapter got typed up during my few free minutes in my PCA [basically a computer] class. So uh, I guess to make up for that, have a super-extra long chapter. Seriously. This one is over twice the length of the average of my previous chapters and I wasn't even trying. o3o  
><strong>

**Anyhoo, all that aside, I wanted to tell you that, unlike Artie, I actually know who's going to be coming to "speak" to the class~. Now, I'm not going to say who, but this is going to give it away. If uh, if anyone has any knowledge of Norwegian magic and lore and such, information would be greatly appreciated. I can always use Google and what I know already, but neither of those are very good sources. So uh... help would be a God send.  
><strong>

**And, for the record, all of that Daoist stuff I got off the interwebz, so I don't know how much of it is credible, and that whole story about the "nonconformist Christians" or whatever, was completely made-up on my part. I intended them to be England, Norway, and Romania... but Iono. I'm stretching it because hey. Every Hetalia/Hogwarts setting needs the Magic Trio in it somehow, right? Yeah... Just don't quote me on any of that. ._."  
><strong>

**One last thing before I wrap this up - pairings. Unless I get an overwhelming demand for a certain pairing, I was planning on keeping this fic mostly ship-free, because I know how much it sucks to be reading a really really good story and then a ship you hate shows up out of nowhere and it's like lwjkfowij no. So, like I said, unless there is an OVERFLOW of want for a certain pairing, this fic will stay pairing-less.  
><strong>

**I think that's all for now. So, once again, so so so terribly sorry for the delay on this chapter, and I apologize hugely in advance for the sure lateness of the next chapter. ;~;  
><strong>


	6. Weekends are the Worst

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, Hetalia, or any affiliations of either. If I did, what the poop would I be writing this for?**

**AN: Yay okay. Another chapter, however how late it is. -whispers- i'm so sorry**

**I'm going to basically be moving my Author's Note to the bottom of the page from now on, because it's just easier to talk about things that way. Up here you can just expect a disclaimer and a bunch of excuses and apologies to the lateness of the chapter. So uh... That stuff out of the way, let's_ finally _get this show on the road, shall we?**

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><p>Arthur caught himself on the bicycle rack that stood next to him. He grimaced as the tugging sensation that came from apparating dissipated from his stomach. Standing upright, he took in a deep breath to steady himself and looked up to the building in front of him. It was tall and almost looked like a huge panel of mirrors, the clear blue sky reflected on its sides. He fiddled with the tie he had put on that morning and readjusted his grip on his briefcase.<p>

"It's now or never," he muttered to himself as he made his way towards the large revolving door. It was almost strange, seeing a door like that; England had gotten used to the medieval-like setting of the Hogwarts castle, and any form of modern architecture reminded him that no, people did not still use oil lamps for lighting. Most people anyways.

As soon as he pushed the door open he was attacked by something that nearly sent him flying back into the door with a muffled yelp. He wasn't exactly sure what it was, but he figured since whatever it was that was clinging to him was obviously rather short, the something was Sealand.

"You jerk!" the 45 year old child yelled into the much older Brit's shoulder. "Don't you _ever _leave me with those meanies ever again. They're worse than you! You could've just left me with Mama and Papa, you know. Jerk." The personified fort then thwacked his older brother on the head, not sparing any mercy.

"Ouch! Well, sorry. I guess I wasn't thinking."

"Damn right you weren't thinking," the little blonde mumbled into Arthur's shoulder, regretting his choice of words the second he said them.

Eyes narrowed, England attempted to glare down at the little boy, but all he could see was the ribbon on his little blue sailor's hat. "Did you just swear, Peter?"

Lips pushed out into a firm pout, said Peter dropped to the floor and sent a scowl to Arthur that he had picked up from him. "You do it all the time. I don't really see why it matters if I do or not. Scotland didn't mind it," the last part he mumbled and hoped the older man wouldn't hear.

"Well Scotland doesn't have a lick of decency, so don't listen to him. And besides. I'm a lot older than you. You're technically still a kid." Knowing he would follow, Arthur started towards the elevator, picking up the briefcase he had dropped somewhere in the midst of being attacked.

"Kid schmid. I'm older than a lot of the schmucks that are swearing now-a-days." Peter nearly had to jog to keep up with the taller Brit.

"In my eyes you're still a kid. Because you are," the brothers entered the elevator and Arthur pressed the button for the top floor, where the meeting would be held. "You're not even a country!"

"I am too! I'm the best country! Best country ever! I'm the great Sealand!"

"You're a fort."

"I'm a country!"

"Fort!"

"Country!"

"FORT!"

"COUNTRY!"

"ENOUGH! We could hear you two from three floors down!" A loud, rather loud and German sounding voice made the Brits jump; they hadn't even realized they had reached their destination. That argument had taken more time than they had expected.

They stood before a very ruffled, red-in-the-face Germany, who had very clearly been the one to yell at them. Behind him stood a smirking Prussia, who was moving as slowly away from his angry brother.

"Don't think you're going anywhere, Gilbert! I'm not done with you." That was when he grabbed the albino by the ear and dragged him off towards the meeting room, chewing him out for sneaking in to the meeting with him.

"Speaking of that," Arthur looked down at the little sea nation - fort, fort! - out of the corner of his eye as he followed the ranting German into the conference room, "how did you get here, anyways?"

"The Jerks brought me. Not you jerk, obviously, but the other jerks. Scotland, North, and Wales. They dropped me off; something about 'not wanting to take care of a bleeding snot-nosed bairn'." Peter shrugged, and sat down in the seat next to Arthur. "And something about a drink and their lack of."

England groaned and rubbed his forehead, attempting to ward off the upcoming headache. "How did they even _get _you here?"

The small Brit shrugged again and began to trace the patterns in the wood on the table. "We flew."

"You... flew... You flew here. In a plane." England sent an incredulous look over at the boy.

"Well... yeah," he said, flicking a glance over to his big brother before returning to his tracing.

A groan followed by a thud indicated England had dropped his head to the table.

"Jerk? Jerk, did you die? Because that'd actually kind of suck. I mean, who else is going to take your place as the jerkiest jerk in the universe?" Peter poked the blonde head several times before he got another groan and he picked his head back up again.

"Just forget it. And you can't sit there; we don't have enough room for everyone as it is."

"Well then where am I supposed to sit?"

"I dunno. You're not even supposed to be here in the first place. Why don't you... Go outside and do some exploring or something. But don't go too far."

"Noooo that's _booooring_! Exploring alone is no fun. I'd need a buddy, obviously. Besides, if I want people to recognize me as a country I need to attend the world meeting."

Realizing that he was getting nowhere with this argument, Arthur sighed and allowed the small boy to climb onto his lap. It made it a bit difficult to see everyone, but it wasn't exactly like he wanted to anyway.

Minutes passed without either of them saying anything. Peter continued tracing patterns into the table and Arthur nursed the headache that he had gotten not too long ago as the rest of the nations began filing in. He could hear Denmark yelling at someone, which was a bit of a surprise before he remembered that he was the host country. That was the only reason he was on time in the first place. (Really, it was a mystery as to why they still held these things in the first place if all they ever did was argue, and half the nations showed up late). Germany was still lecturing Prussia, but at this point, England doubted the big albino child was even listening, if he even had from the beginning.

Seats around the massive oval table were being filled, but England only took note of a few of them. Spain had somehow managed to sneak Romano in again, it seemed, and Greece was napping away as usual. Switzerland yelling at France for being in the same room with Liechtenstein, Italy screaming to no one about pasta or something of the like, and America was nowhere to be seen; everything was normal.

England looked to his left and nearly jumped to see that the seat had already been taken. By Japan, no less, so it made sense that he hadn't even noticed him sit down; he was awfully quiet. The quiet nation simply gave a small smile and a nod to acknowledge the two Brits, and turned his attention back to the front. How he stayed so calm at these things, Arthur would never be able to understand.

On his left, Arthur couldn't quite put a finger on who it was. If he didn't know better, who would have said it was America, though this man was much too quiet to be him. Apparently sensing someone was staring at him, the blonde that looked considerably like a certain loud American turned to face the island nation and gave a smile and a small chuckle as he glanced down at the boy in his lap. "Hey England. And Sealand."

Peter looked up hopefully when he heard his name, but then only frowned when he couldn't quite recognize who it was. Instead of saying anything, he returned to his patterns. The other man addressed simply smiled and tried to avoid the fact that he had no clue who the man was. "Hello."

Obviously, he noticed the pointed lack of a name used, and only sighed. "Canada," he said calmly, like he had been through it many times before. "I'm Canada, remember?"

"Oh, right, yes of course! Sorry, I just... I'm just a little out of it today." Arthur smiled his apologies and pinched Peter lightly on the back to stop him from saying something stupid.

"It's alright. I understand," the soft-spoken man looked between the two on his left with almost teary blue eyes before turning back to the front of the room.

It was a good half hour after the meeting had been supposed to start when Denmark blew on a whistle to get everyone's attention. Ever since a while ago and the rest of the Nordics had teamed up to get him the "rape whistle" as a present, the spikey haired Dane had carried it with him. It was quite effective during meetings, though he usually used it to blow people's eardrum's out, or Germany had gotten a hold of it to bring everyone to order. Either way, it had become a regular part of world meetings.

"Alright!" the loud Dane yelled, gaining the attention of only half the room. "Let's get this thing started!" It didn't seem that his yelling was doing much. "OI. SERIOUSLY, I'M UP HERE."

It only took three more lines of shouting before the door slammed against the wall and none other than "THE HERO!" walked in. That seemed to grab everyone's attention, and now everyone directed their anger and voices at America who was blatantly ignoring all of them and sipping his large soda happily all the way to his chair.

England would admit that he was one of the people shouting, though no one could make out any one person's voice, as the room was nearly exploding from all the sound. Several "FINALLY!"s or "YOU'RE ALWAYS LATE!"s were definitely heard, along with a few colorful words and names of choice.

After another while of screaming and pointing and accusations, it seemed that the time for screwing around was over. They had had their bickering time; it was time for Germany to call things to order.

Like always.

_Really, _England thought with a huff, _do things ever change?_

* * *

><p>Meanwhile, the Golden Trio sat in the Gryffindor common room, the two boys' faces flushed from the try-outs. They had not yet changed out of their robes, and were currently seated as far away from the fireplace as they could. Ron had already threatened to pass out from heat exhaustion on the pitch, and none of them wanted that to become a reality.<p>

Hermione would glance up from the book she had chosen for that evening; one of the ones she had gotten from the library earlier that day. Harry had asked about it, but she simply shook it off and said, "Just some outside reading. Nothing important." She wanted to tell her friends what she was doing, really, she did, but she could only see them scoffing at her and rolling their eyes. "It's too early in the year for this!", they would say. _Well,_ Hermione thought with a huff, _let them think what they want. What I'm doing is important. Very important!_

None-the-less, the three sat in silence; Harry staring off into space, Ron all but passed out on the table, and Hermione pouring over her book. The rest of the people in the common room went about their business as usual, ignoring everyone but the one they were directly addressing.

Finally unable to take the silence anymore, Harry all but jumped up and hurriedly mumbled something along the lines of "I'm going to change," before quickly stalking over to the stairs and up to his dorm, leaving his two friends behind.

Ron had tried to stand up to follow him, but slammed his head back down onto the table the second he attempted muscle movement. Hermione barely glanced up from her book.

Once he was changed out of his sweaty robes and into an old pair of Dudley's jeans (at some point he was going to get his own, even if he had to steal them) and a simple t-shirt. It was Saturday, so they didn't need to wear their robes, which Harry was thankful for.

He sat on the edge of his bed for a bit, soaking up the silence. Though his friends downstairs weren't talking much, save for Ron's random moans or complaints, it was still rather loud, and he liked the peace the dorm held. It was helping the headache he had gotten from making sure his red-headed friend didn't slip off his broom.

Harry clenched his hand as he looked down at the carving in his skin. _I must not tell lies_. He hadn't exactly lied to his friends about what he was doing in Umbridge's detentions; he just wasn't telling the whole truth. Earlier that week, Harry had already managed to land himself an entire week's worth of detentions, just for standing up for Cedric. It had angered him that she could just talk about his death like he slipped on a banana peel and hit his head. An accident? Pah! The truth, and what did Harry get? A lie carved into his hand.

His scowl deepened as he curled his hand into a fist, fingernails digging into his palm. His bones moved underneath his skin and made the words more pronounced. The toad was making him write lines, yes. That much he had told Ron and Hermione. What he didn't tell them, however, was that he was basically writing them in his own blood. Stupid witch.

Honestly, he was surprised - and a tad disappointed - that neither of them had noticed the ginger movements he made with that hand, or even the words themselves. He made sure he hid them as well as possible, but still. Just goes to show how observant _they_ were.

Scowl more prominent than ever, the brooding teen stood up and slowly made for the door. He was reluctant to leave the quiet, but he knew that if he stayed up there too long either his friends would worry, or someone would show up and ruin it

Making an effort to hide the scar on his hand as best he could, he descended the stairs again, to find Ron and Hermione exactly as he had left them. Smacking Ron lightly on the head to alert him that maybe it was time for him to get changed, he returned to his seat across from the slumped form of his red-headed friend. "Oi, come on. You can't just stay there forever."

"Watch me," came the muffled reply.

Hermione rolled her eyes and snapped her book shut, immediately stuffing it into the bag she had hung on the back of her chair. "Well, I dunno about _you _two, but I think it's about time for dinner. Those tryouts went awfully late."

"Food?" Ron picked his head up slowly at the mention of dinner.

"Yes, Ronald, food. But no food for you if you don't go and change right this instant. We'll just stay here all night."

It didn't take long for the youngest Weasley boy to stumble out of his chair and up the stairs. He only narrowly avoided tripping on his own feet.

Harry snorted. "I swear, sometimes he's worse than Dudley about food."

Hermione gave a half grin and slung her book bag over her shoulder. They were just going to the Great Hall, but she wasn't about to go anywhere without those books. They were her number one priority at the moment; aside from preparing herself for the O.W.L.s, of course. That was always first. Always.

When Ron had returned to the other two, much sweeter smelling, now that he was rid of the sweaty clothes, they walked in silence to the Great Hall. It wasn't an uncomfortable silence, just a lack of conversation.

The rest of the meal continued in silence as well. They listened to the chatter of the rest of the hall, though they had none of their own. Ron was busy reflecting on how well (or not well, depending on how you looked at it) he had done during his tryouts, Hermione distracted by thoughts of her research, and Harry simply wallowing in his own angst. Not that he was doing that, because he definitely wasn't.

Teenage stomachs filled, they returned to the common room. Conversation still didn't seem to be in the forecast, so Ron mumbled something about homework and stumbled up the stairs once more. He returned with his and Harry's bag, dumping them both on the table in front of them. The boys grudgingly took out parchment and a quill complete with an ink pot to begin their Potions essays for Snape. Hermione was already a good chunk of the way done with hers, so she figured she could take tonight as a free read night.

There were a few people in the room with them, either studying or chatting, though she figured most of them would be in the Great Hall or off doing God-knows-what at who-knows-where.

The trio spent the next three three hours either doing homework, or, in Hermione's case, searching through each of the books she had brought back from the library. She had been able to fit a total of five into her back, and so far she was finding nothing about Kirkland's story.

At this point, that's exactly what it was looking like: a story.

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><p><em>Thud. Thud. Thud.<em>

Peter heaved another sigh as he watched the form of his caretaker repeatedly drop his head onto the hard table. "That's not going to help your headache any, you know."

"Shut up, Peter," Arthur's voice was muffled against the wood, but Peter still heard him. He rolled his eyes. That seemed to be the only thing he heard from the older nation these days.

The self-proclaimed nation sat with England at the table farthest in the corner of the break room. Peter swung his legs back and forth and sipped at the juice he had convinced Arthur to buy him. He may seem like a big grumpy-pants, but really he was just a big softie. Especially with kids.

Peter loved juice. He didn't know why, he just did. Maybe it was because when he was with the other jerks, all they had was alcohol and water, and then Mama Finland wouldn't let him have juice. He said it wasn't very healthy; baloney, Peter thought. It's made from fruit, so obviously it was healthy.

Truthfully, Peter hadn't actually wanted to come to the meeting. Last time he came, he found that it was not fun at all, especially when no one recognized him. Besides, all they did was talk about depressing things, like global warming and stuff. Not Peter's favorite topic. He would much rather talk about those big robots that Mr. Japan had shown him that one time. So much cooler than global warming or budgeting.

But the other jerks had apparently had enough of Peter, and flew him off here, where jerk England could take care of him. He knew he wouldn't be able to stay with him though. Whenever Arthur went off to do something Peter was left behind. Every time he asked why, the jerk just said he was too young. Which was absurd, by the way. He was sure Arthur just didn't want to deal with him. Totally rude. Arthur would just leave him with the other jerks (which was on rare occasions because Arthur didn't like them any more than Peter did) or Mama Finland and Papa Sweden. Peter didn't really mind staying with his mama and papa, but sometimes he liked being with Arthur. Not because he liked the jerk or anything, he just really liked to annoy him. Peter didn't miss the jerk. Not at all. Like hell he'd ever miss him... that jerk.

They stayed like that for a good half hour. England was giving off very strong "do-not-talk-to-me-do-not-approach-me-or-so-help-m e-God-I-will-rip-your-genitalia-from-your-body-lat her-it-in-marmalade-and-feed-it-to-the-alley-dogs" vibe, and the other nations understood loud and clear, giving the two Brits a wide bubble to themselves. Peter almost wished one of them would approach them, just to save him from the older man's grumpy silence.

Peter took another, almost angry, sip of his juice and frowned- NOT pouted- ever-so-slightly at his angry caretaker. He had noticed that the other nations had begun to filter back into the meeting room, and didn't want them to be left behind. Gently, Peter tapped the head of messy blonde hair in front of him. A groan escaped, but other than that, no response. He tapped the head again, slightly more determined, but only received a louder groan.

Growing irritated, Peter sat back in his chair. "Fine. I guess they'll just have to start the meeting without you."

"Let them," was the muffled reply.

"Have it your way then," said the micro-nation as he jumped out of his chair. "I have no choice but to sit in for you."

"Oh no you don't," England retorted, finally getting out of his own chair and grabbing on to Sealand's shoulders.

Resigned to his fate, Arthur gently guided Peter towards their seat and sat down, pulling the smaller nation onto his lap, not even bothering trying to get him to stay outside. As the last nation had taken their seat, Denmark once again took to the front of the room, calling everyone to order.

It took everything Arthur had in him not to simply apparate elsewhere right then and there.

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><p>Completely exasperated, Hermione shut the book closed with a thud. Looking around the common room, she realized it was late. Later than she had intended.<p>

Everyone else had already left for bed, leaving her the only one in the room. She rubbed her eyes intently, and then took a good hard look at the book staring at her mockingly. She had managed to book cover to cover, and found nothing. Even though it was only one of the five, the fruitless search left her discouraged.

She had hoped to find something resembling part of Kirkland's lesson. It had been nothing like she had found in any of her previous readings, and had hoped that maybe it was something new, something _fresh._ But as much as she wanted it to be true, there was a part of her, the part that had rented all these books, that simply couldn't believe it.

It was frustrating, having her teacher tell her one thing, and then the numerous narratives on the same subject telling her exactly another. She really, really wanted to believe Kirkland, she really did. But everything she had ever read was so contradictory to his lesson, her most recent read included.

Heaving a heavy sigh, she dropped the book into her bag with the rest and decided she should be heading to bed. It was late, and she was exhausted. As she dragged herself up the stairs and into her pyjamas and bed, she hoped that she would find something in one of the other four books.

She really didn't want to prove Kirkland a fraud. She was finding herself quite fond of the teacher.

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><p><em>~End Weekend~<em>

_Thank Merlin_, England thought as he stood from his chair and stretched, cracking his back with a satisfying pop.

It had been a long fucking weekend of boring speeches and arguments, and it was finally over. He had convinced Finland and Sweden to take Sealand, after many complaints on the micro-nation's side. It wasn't that he didn't _want _Sealand to be with him, it was just that Hogwarts wasn't really a place he could take the boy.

He gathered his things silently and ignored anyone that attempted to talk to him. He was tired, and irritated, and definitely not in the mood for pleasant chatting. He just wanted to get back to his cozy little room in the Hogwarts castle.

Although, before he could return, he had to confirm that 'guest speaker' that he had promised the kids.

Great. There goes his 'I'm not going to talk to anyone' plan. Grumbling, he finished packing away the various documents into his briefcase and took a quick look around. Most of them had already left, probably out for drinks or something. Normally, England would have been with them, but he didn't have time for that. Nor did he really care to. The few that remained, however, were chatting lightly among themselves. It would always amuse him how they would fight and bicker like there was no tomorrow during the meeting, and then be so pleasant with each other immediately afterwards.

Shoving his amusement to the back of his mind, he returned to focus; he had business to think about. As he scanned the room and really thought about everyone he saw, he felt his hopes droop. He didn't want to take any of these tossers to Hogwarts. No way.

Defeated, Arthur slowly made his way out of the room and to the elevator. Maybe he would just have to deal with China, as that was seeming to become his only option. And he hadn't even asked the nation if he was interested.

Maybe this was a bad idea, he thought as he stepped out of the elevator onto the ground floor. He didn't really think it completely through before he had promised the class.

Apparently, however, he had not been paying attention to where he was stepping, and ran right into someone at the door. "Sorry! I wasn't looking, my bad," England stumbled out his apologies.

"It's alright," the other man said, "no damage done."

"Norway!" _Of course! Why didn't I think of him before? Stupid!_

"Yes?" the fair haired man replied, confused at England's outburst.

"Err... d'you... have a minute?"

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><p><strong>AN: It's been over a year since the last actual chapter. Oops?<strong>

**No, it's not really an oops, it's just a combination of lack of motivation, lack of an actual definite idea of what I want to do here, lack of self-confidence and satisfaction with my writing abilities, as well as the actual content, and also laziness. **

**So, I have a proposition for you all. I could either attempt to continue with the story the way it is, or turn it into a drabble type thing, where I would forego any semblance of a plot, and simply do the different sessions with the different nations attempting to teach.**

**A big warning though: if I do decide to try and continue with the story as it is going now, there is a high probability of me dropping it. For lots of different reasons, all of which are listed above. I personally would prefer the drabbles, and would probably be a lot more motivated to do that, because I would at least know where I was going with those. **

**And then of course I could just drop it all-together and leave everything up to our imaginations. I would really like to try not to do that though, as that would be a big blow to my confidence 'n stuff. Because I started out with this with full intentions of finishing it and making it big huge cool story (how naive I was) and it would be kind of sad if I dropped it now. **

**So... I guess I'll leave it up to you guys, though I'm pretty much already sold on the drabble idea. **

**Also, apologies if this chapter didn't make much sense. The majority was written almost a year ago, and I'm a horrible editor. So very sorry about that! Additional apologies for the rushed ending. **

**Anyway, thank you ALL for having such ridiculous patience with me! You're all SUPER GREAT FANTASTIC WONDERFUL!**

**fo realzies. luv u all 5evur. 3 **


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